Brentwood (11 page)

“Of course not,” said Betty alertly. “I’ll see to that. I’ll go talk to Ted. Mother would get so excited if she knew what was going on. What has Ted been after, anyway? Bonnie’s bed?”

“I told him to bring that first and then go get a truck and bring all the rest of the things.”

“Oh!” said Betty, breathless with relief. “Oh! Won’t that be wonderful! But—what a lot we’ll owe you.”

“Don’t, please!” said Marjorie sharply. “You hurt me! I’m your sister! You don’t owe me a thing.”

Then they heard the front door open and heavy footsteps tramping in, and the girls flew to caution Ted and set Bud to watch the door.

“I found Bill hanging round with nothing to do, so we brought everything,” explained Ted in a low mumble to Marjorie, as he measured his step to suit the step of Bill, the rough truck driver in a sheepskin coat with a greasy cap on the back of his head.

It proved a bit hard to subdue Bill’s deep voice and step, but Betty was vigilant, and Bud was delighted with his office of doorkeeper, and it didn’t take long after all to marshal in the poor bits of household comfort that had gone out one by one to supply necessities. When the door shut at last on Bill and they heard his truck drive away, the brothers and sisters looked at one another in the garish light of a single stark electric bulb swinging from a long wire in the parlor ceiling and drew breaths of relief. Suddenly Betty dropped down in a big, shabby, faded chair and buried her face in her hands, her weary, slender young shoulders shaking with the sobs she would not allow to become audible.

Marjorie was by her side instantly, her arms about her.

“There, dear! Don’t cry. Poor dear! You’re so tired, aren’t you? But listen! We’re going to have a nice supper now and a good time getting things to rights. Come, cheer up! You’ll have to put things in their places, because I don’t know where they belong.”

Betty raised tearstained eyes and began to laugh softly, hysterically.

“I’m—only crying—because it’s so wonderful—to see our old things back again!” she gurgled. “I used to hate them all so, this faded chair and couch and those ugly tables, but now I’m so glad to see them!”

Marjorie smiled.

“Well, it does seem more homelike, doesn’t it? My! That couch looks good to me. I’m going to try it after a while, but now I’m going to take Bonnie’s temperature again and see whether we need the doctor.”

But while she was taking the temperature, the doctor arrived.

“I’ve had a call out into the country,” he explained as Betty opened the door for him, “and I might have to be gone all night. I thought I’d better just step in and see how the patients are before I leave. I want to make sure your mother’s lungs are not involved before I go so far away!”

Betty went with him upstairs, hurrying to close the doors into the other empty rooms so that he would not see their bareness, resolving not to let him disturb her father if she could help it. She knew he would be terribly mortified to have the doctor see him asleep on a mattress on the floor.

Ted came in the back door just as the doctor went upstairs, and Marjorie turned to him with troubled eyes.

“Ted, could you help me put Bonnie in on the couch?” she asked. “The doctor is upstairs, and I think he ought to see her. Her temperature is going up in spite of all I’ve done, and she ought to have some medicine. It looks better in there than here.”

Ted turned and glanced down at the hot little face on the pillow with new dismay in his eyes.

“Good night!” he said sorrowfully. “Can you beat it? Everything comes at once. Sure we can move her. I’ll carry her and you fix the covers.”

He stooped and lifted the little girl gently. Marjorie hurried ahead with the quilts and pillow, and in a moment the child was comfortably established on the old couch.

“I’m glad I laid down the rug first,” said Ted, standing back and casting a critical glance around. “It doesn’t look so bad here, does it?”

“No,” said Marjorie with a bright smile, covering a sinking heart. “It just looks homey, as if it was lived in, you know.”

She straightened a chair and wiped the dust from the table, then went over to the bookcase and took out two or three books, laying them on the table as if they had been recently read.

“I’m glad you brought the books,” she said with satisfaction. “It never looks like home without books.”

“I guess that’s so,” said the boy seriously. “I brought them because Mother loves them so much. I didn’t know whether I ought to or not. We can’t sleep on books, nor wear them. Maybe I should have saved the money, but he didn’t allow but three cents apiece on them, so I thought I’d bring them.”

“Of course. That was right! I wanted you to bring everything back. Are you sure there aren’t any more?”

“Clothes!” said Ted. “But we sold them out and out. Betts thought we wouldn’t want to wear them anyway, after they’d hung up in the window of that junk shop for everybody to stare at and recognize.”

“Of course not!” said Marjorie, suppressing a little shudder of horror. “Well, we’ll look after those things later when everyone gets well and things are going comfortably here. Oh, we’ll have things all right by Christmas.”

“Christmas!” said Ted a trifle bitterly. “It’ll be Christmas enough for me just to have our things back and enough to eat and have it warm here!”

And then they heard the doctor coming down the stairs and the talk was cut short.

“All going well above stairs,” he announced cheerfully. “Mother’s breaking into a nice perspiration, and her lungs are clear so far. I don’t expect her fever to go up tonight at all.”

He glanced down at Marjorie.

“You’re the sister, aren’t you? You two are very much alike. Well, I think you can be easy in your mind. I didn’t go in to look at your father. Your sister said he was sleeping quietly, and that was all he needed, rest. He’s been worried, of course, like everybody else in these days of depression, but if he gets rested up, he’ll take hold of things with new zest. So you girls needn’t worry. Anyhow, I’ll be back in the morning, and if you need anything early, you can call me.”

“But we have another patient in here,” said Marjorie. “I think you’d better look at her before you go. I’ve done all I know how to do, but her temperature seems to be going up in spite of it.”

She led the way to the couch.

“We put her down here so we wouldn’t disturb Mother,” she explained.

The doctor bent over the little girl, touched the hot forehead, the limp wrist, counting the pulse, then he straightened up, asked a few keen questions, and called for glasses of water and teaspoons.

“I’ll get them,” said Ted, and hurried to the kitchen, terribly glad that the teaspoons were back from the pawn shop.

Betty came downstairs while the doctor was giving directions. She stood by the doorway looking anxiously at the little sick sister.

“I don’t anticipate anything serious,” said the doctor with a smile toward Betty and another at Marjorie. “Her fever may go up a trifle until midnight, but there’s nothing to be alarmed about. Give the medicine regularly, and I think you’ll see the fever go down before morning. Thanks to your prompt treatment, I think the worst is over. It’s her stomach, of course. Children will eat all sorts of things, you know. It looks like a light case of food poisoning, but I think she’ll come out all right.”

Betty and Marjorie exchanged glances, and then Betty spoke up, telling about the “hot-dogs-that-were-cold,” that Sunny had said Bonnie had eaten. Betty’s face was crimson with shame lest the doctor would wonder why a child would be so hungry that she would pick up cast-out food, but the doctor took it in a very matter-of-fact way, twinkling his nice kind brown eyes at Betty, and grinning.

“The little reprobate!” he said, patting Bonnie’s thin little hand. “Isn’t it a wonder that any of us survive? My mother used to tell a tale of finding me at the age of two seated on the back steps devouring the skins of baked potatoes that I had snitched out of the garbage pail! Well, we all have to learn by the hardest. I remember I got a very effectual spanking before I learned my lesson. I guess she’ll be all right. Give her medicine every hour and orange juice if she wants it. Nothing else. I’ll come in the first thing in the morning and see how you girls are getting on. You look young to run a hospital, but I guess you’ll make a go of it.”

There was sudden dismay in Betty’s face as the doctor opened the door, and perhaps he saw it, for he reached over and patted her shoulder before he put on his gloves.

“Don’t you worry,” he said comfortingly, “everybody’s going to be all right. They’ll all be decidedly better in the morning, I’m sure.”

Betty looked up and met his eyes wistfully, and Marjorie saw the glance and thought what nice eyes the doctor had. Nice brown eyes.

W
hen the doctor was gone, Betty turned to her new sister.

“You ought to go now,” she said sharply. “It’s getting dark, and you ought to go back to your hotel. You can’t stay here tonight in a mess like this.”

Marjorie looked at her sister with a startled glance. Was Betty anxious to get her away?

“Oh, my
dear
!” she said, aghast. “You don’t think a mess like this is any worse for me than it is for you, do you?”

“You’re not used to it,” said Betty sullenly. “I can manage. And you’ve done a lot. You ought to get a good night’s rest and not be burdened with things that don’t belong to you.”

“But they do belong to me!” said Marjorie. “It’s my father and mother who are sick upstairs, isn’t it? The father and mother God gave to me as much as to you? And it’s my little sister who is sick down here! And how could you possibly think you could manage alone? You are half sick yourself. And even if Ted helped you, he is just about ready to drop. You know you are all weakened with cold and hunger and anxiety. Please, my dear, don’t shove me out! After everybody is well, I’ll go away and give you a chance to talk it all over, and if you decide you don’t want me, I won’t trouble you anymore. But I couldn’t leave you now. I haven’t even seen my mother yet.”

There was a sob in her voice that went to Betty’s heart.

“I didn’t mean that!” she said almost fiercely. “I don’t want you to go. Goodness knows how I’ll get along if you do, but I’ll do it, somehow, or die in the attempt. But—well, how
could
you stay here? The only bed there is for you would be my mattress on the floor upstairs, and Father’s asleep there. Maybe he’ll wake up after a while, but I don’t think I ought to disturb him till he does, do you?”

“Certainly not,” said Marjorie, “and in any case I would want to stay beside Bonnie—that is, if you would let me, tonight, and you get some sleep. You look sick yourself. But where were you planning to sleep yourself, even if I weren’t here?”

“I hadn’t planned,” said Betty with a toss of her head and a weary sigh. “I can sleep anywhere if I get a chance. The floor is plenty good enough for me. I could sleep down in the cellar if I had to.”

“I haven’t a doubt that you could,” said Marjorie seriously. “Anybody probably could, if they were tired enough. But it wouldn’t be good for you, even if you could. As for me, I’m quite rested. I haven’t done anything for the last four or five weeks. I certainly can stand more hardship than you can. You look as if you were ready to drop. I fully realize that you have nerve enough to keep you going if you were dead on your feet, but I don’t intend you shall. Not unless you would rather have me get a trained nurse! Or unless you deliberately turn me out of the house. Of course, I know I haven’t any right here at all. I haven’t a right to say what you shall do or shall not, unless you give it to me. But I wish you would understand that I want to help and make things as easy for you as I can.

“Now, suppose we put aside hostilities and talk it over quietly together, find out what is best to be done. I had thought that perhaps you would trust me to look after Bonnie tonight and let you get a good rest. She is the only one of the sick who seems to be in a condition that won’t be hurt by the presence of a stranger. I thought perhaps Ted could put her little bed in here, where if she woke she wouldn’t make any noise upstairs to disturb the others, and I would just lie down here on the couch beside her and keep watch. Then you could get a good sleep, for you certainly need it. It wouldn’t hurt me in the least, for I’m used to night nursing. I did it for several weeks at a time while Moth—while Mrs. Wetherill was so sick. But, you see, what I didn’t realize was that there wouldn’t be a good comfortable bed for you. You know I haven’t been upstairs. It isn’t my fault that I didn’t know that. I was only trying to plan to have you comfortable.”

“Well, and I was planning to have you comfortable for the night when I suggested you go back to your hotel,” said Betty with an apology in her voice. “I didn’t mean to be disagreeable. I was just worried.”

“Well, there, let’s sit down in the dining room and talk it over. There is surely something we can do to make us all comfortable for the night. Where does Sunny sleep?”

“He sleeps in the room with Ted and Bud. He has a little crib. Why, where is Sunny? Ted didn’t take him with him, did he? Where did Ted go, anyway? Do you know?”

“He said something about going back for another load. But I don’t think Sunny went with him. At least, if he did, Ted didn’t know it. Bud went along, but I didn’t see Sunny anywhere. He was eating bread and jelly the last I saw of him. Maybe he’s in the kitchen.”

The girls hurried into the kitchen, but Sunny was not there. Betty swung open the back door and called softly, fearing to waken the sleepers upstairs, and then rushed out into the little side yard, calling.

“He isn’t anywhere!” said Betty, coming back with terror in her eyes, “and it’s awfully dark and cold. And he didn’t have his coat on, either. Now
he
’ll be sick, I suppose. And where shall I look for him? I guess I’ll have to go to the police station. He might be lost or kidnapped or something.”

But Marjorie suddenly swung open the pantry door and switched on the light, and there lay Sunny on the floor in a corner, with a tin can of graham crackers clasped in his arms, crumbs all over his baby face, sound asleep, a half-eaten sugar cookie in one hand, dead to the world!