CHAPTER XX
EVERY DOG HAS HIS DAY
That was on a Saturday morning. During the golf season Saturday isalways a busy day with us, with the husbands coming up for over Sunday,and trying to get in all the golf, baths and spring water they can inforty-eight hours. But in the winter Saturday is the same as any, otherday.
It had stopped snowing and the sun was shining, although it was so coldthat the snow blew like powder. By eleven o'clock every one who couldwalk had come to the spring-house. Even Mr. Jennings came down in awheeled chair, and Senator Biggs, still looking a sort of grass-greenand keeping his eyes off me, came and sat in a corner, with a bookcalled Fast versus Feast held so that every one could see.
There were bridge tables going, and five hundred, and a group aroundthe slot-machine, while the crocheters formed a crowd by themselves,exchanging gossip and new stitches.
About twelve o'clock Mr. Thoburn came in, and as he opened the door,in leaped Arabella. The women made a fuss over the creature and cuddledher, and when I tried to put her out everybody objected. So she stayed,and Miss Summers put her through a lot of tricks, while the men crowdedaround. As I said before, Miss Summers was a first favorite with themen.
Mr. von Inwald and Miss Patty came in just then and stood watching.
"And now," said Mr. von Inwald, "I propose, as a reward to MissArabella, a glass of this wonderful water. Minnie, a glass of water forArabella!"
"She doesn't drink out of one of my glasses," I declared angrily.
"It's one of my rules that dogs--"
"Tut!" said Mr. Thoburn. "What's good for man is good for beast.Besides, the little beggar's thirsty."
Well, they made a great fuss about the creature's being thirsty, and sofinally I got a panful of spring water and it drank until I thought itwould burst. I'm not vicious, as I say, but I wish it had.
Well, the dog finished and lay down by the fire, and everything seemedto go on as before. Mr. Thoburn was in a good humor, and he came over tothe spring and brought a trayful of glasses.
"To save you steps, Minnie!" he explained. "You have no idea how itpains me to see you working. Gentlemen, name your poison!"
"A frappe with blotting-paper on the side," Mr. Moody snarled from theslot-machine. "If I drink much more, I'll have to be hooped up like abarrel."
"Just what is the record here?" the bishop asked. "I'm ordered eightglasses, but I find it more than a sufficiency."
"We had one man here once who could drink twenty-five at a time," Isaid, "but he was a German."
"He was a tank," Mr. Sam corrected grumpily. He was watching somethingon the floor--I couldn't see what. "All I need is to swallow a fewgoldfish and I'd be a first-class aquarium."
"What I think we should do," Miss Cobb said, "is to try to find out justwhat suits us, and stick to that. I'm always trying."
"Damned trying!" Mr. Jennings snarled, and limped over for more water."I'd like to know where to go for rheumatism."
"I got mine here," said Mr. Thoburn cheerfully. "It's my opinion thisplace is rheumatic as well as malarious. And as for this water, with alldue respect to the spirit in the spring"--he bowed to me--"I think it'san insult to ask people to drink it. It isn't half so strong as itwas two years ago. Taste it; smell it! I ask the old friends of thesanatorium, is that water what it used to be?"
"Don't tell me it was ever any worse than this!" Miss Summers exclaimed.But Thoburn went on. The card-players stopped to listen, but Mr. Sam wasstill staring at something on the floor.
"I tell you, the spring is losing its virtue, and, like a woman, withoutvirtue, it is worthless."
"But interesting!" Mr. Sam said, and stooped down.
"Consider," went on Mr. Thoburn, standing and holding his glass to thelight, "how we are at the mercy of this little spring! A convulsion inthe bowels of the earth, and its health-giving properties may be changedto the direst poison. How do we know, you and I, some such change hasnot occurred overnight? Unlikely as it is, it's a possibility that,sitting here calmly, we may be sipping our death potion."
Some of the people actually put down their glasses and everybody beganto look uneasy except Mr. Sam, who was still watching something I couldnot see.
Mr. Thoburn looked around and saw he'd made an impression. "We may,"he continued, "although my personal opinion of this water is that it'sgrowing too weak to be wicked. I prove my faith in Mother Nature; if itis poisoned, I am gone. I drink!"
Mr. Sam suddenly straightened up and glanced at Miss Summers. "PerhapsI'm mistaken," he said, "but I think there is something the matter withArabella."
Everybody looked: Arabella was lying on her back, jerking and twitchingand foaming at the mouth.
"She's been poisoned!" Miss Summers screeched, and fell on her kneesbeside her. "It's that wretched water!"
There was pretty nearly a riot in a minute. Everybody jumped up andstared at the dog, and everybody remembered the water he or she had justhad, and coming on top of Mr. Thoburn's speech, it made them babblinglunatics. As I look back, I have a sort of picture of Miss Summers onthe floor with Arabella in her lap, and the rest telling how much of thewater they had had and crowding around Mr. Thoburn.
"It seems hardly likely it was the water," he said, "although from whatI recall of my chemistry it is distinctly possible. Springs have beenknown to change their character, and the coincidence--the dog and thewater--is certainly startling. Still, as nobody feels ill--"
But they weren't sure they didn't. The bishop said he felt perfectlywell, but he had a strange inclination to yawn all the time, and Mrs.Biggs' left arm had gone to sleep. And then, with the excitement andall, Miss Cobb took a violent pain in the back of her neck and didn'tknow whether to cry or to laugh.
Well, I did what I could. The worst of it was, I wasn't sure it wasn'tthe water. I thought possibly Mr. Pierce had made a mistake in what hehad bought at the drug store, and although I don't as a rule drink itmyself, I began to feel queer in the pit of my stomach.
Mr. Thoburn came over to the spring, and filling a glass, took it tothe light, with every one watching anxiously. When he brought it back hestooped over the railing and whispered to me.
"When did you fix it?" he asked sternly.
"Last night," I answered. It was no time to beat about the bush.
"It's yellower than usual," he said. "I'm inclined to think somethinghas gone wrong at the drug store, Minnie."
I could hardly breathe. I had the most terrible vision of all the guestslying around like Arabella, twitching and foaming, and me going toprison as a wholesale murderess. Any hair but mine would have turnedgray in that minute.
Mr. von Inwald was watching like the others, and now he came over andcaught Mr. Thoburn by the arm.
"What do you think--" he asked nervously. "I--I have had three glassesof it!"
"Three!" shouted Senator Biggs, coming forward. "I've had eleven! I tellyou, I've been feeling queer for twenty-four hours! I'm poisoned! That'swhat I am."
He staggered out, with Mrs. Biggs just behind him, and from that momentthey were all demoralized. I stood by the spring and sipped at thewater to show I wasn't afraid of it, with my knees shaking under me andArabella lying stock-still, as if she had died, under my very nose. Oneby one they left to look for Doctor Barnes, or to get the white of egg,which somebody had suggested as an antidote.
Miss Cobb was one of the last to go. She turned in the doorway andlooked back at me, with tears in her eyes.
"It isn't your fault, Minnie," she said, "and forgive me if I have eversaid anything unkind to you." Then she went, and I was alone, lookingdown at Arabella.
Or rather, I thought I was alone, for there was a movement by one of thewindows and Miss Patty came forward and knelt by the dog.
"Of all the absurdities!" she said. "Poor little thing! Minnie, Ibelieve she's breathing!"
She put the dog's head in her lap, and the little beast opened its eyesand tried to wag its blue tail.
"Oh, Miss Patty, Miss Patty!" I exc
laimed, and I got down beside her andcried on her shoulder, with her stroking my hand and calling me dearest!Me!
I was wiping my eyes when the door was thrown open and Mr. Pierce ranin. He had no hat on and his hair was powdered with snow. He stoppedjust inside the door and looked at Miss Patty.
"You--" he said "you are all right? You are not--" he came forward andstood over her, with his heart in his eyes. She MUST have known fromthat minute.
"My God!" he exclaimed, "I thought you were poisoned!"
She looked up, without smiling, and then I thought she half shut hereyes, as if what she saw in his face hurt her.
"I am all right," she assured him, "and little Arabella will beall right, too. She's had a convulsion, that's all--probably fromovereating. As for the others--!"
"Where is the--where is von Inwald?"
"He has gone to take the white of an egg," she replied rather haughtily.She was too honest to evade anything, but she flushed. Of course, I knewwhat he didn't--that the prince had been among the first to scurry tothe house, and that he hadn't even waited for her.
He walked to the window, as if he didn't want her to see what he thoughtof that, and I saw him looking hard at something outside in the snow.When he walked back to the fire he was smiling, and he stooped over andpoked Arabella with his finger.
"So that was it!" he said. "Full to the scuppers, poor little wretch!Minnie, I am hoist with my own petard, which in this case was aboomerang."
"Which is in English--" I asked.
"With the instinct of her sex, Arabella has unearthed what was meantto be buried forever. She had gorged herself into a convulsion on thatrabbit I shot last night!"