We two had chosen for our resting-place the little mow of half a load or so, which had not been stowed away above, but lay ready for present use over by the side-door opening on the cow-yard. Temporary beds had been spread for the women with fresh straw and blankets at the further end of the central threshing-floor. Abner himself had taken one of the rescued ticks and a quilt over to the other end, and stretched his ponderous length out across the big doors, with the gun by his side. No one had, of course, dreamed of undressing.
Only a few minutes of wakefulness sufficed to throw me into a desperate state of fidgets. The hay seemed full of strange creeping noises. The whole big barn echoed with the boisterous ticking of the old eight-day clock which had been saved from the wreck of the kitchen, and which M’rye had set going again on the seat of the democrat wagon. And then Hurley!
I began to be convinced, now, that I was coming down with a great spell of sickness—perhaps even “the fever.” Yes, it undoubtedly was the fever. I could feel it in my bones, which now started up queer prickly sensations on novel lines, quite as if they were somebody else’s bones instead. My breathing, indeed, left a good deal to be desired from the true fever standpoint. It was not nearly so rapid or convulsive as I understood that the breathing of a genuine fever victim ought to be. But that, no doubt, would come soon enough—nay! was it not already coming? I thought, upon examination, that I did breathe more swiftly than before. And oh! that Hurley!
As noiselessly as possible I made my way, half-rolling, half-sliding, off the hay, and got on my feet on the floor. It was pitch dark, but I could feel along the old disused stanchion-row to the corner; thence it was plain sailing over to where Abner was sleeping by the big front doors. I would not dream of rousing him if he was in truth asleep, but it would be something to be nigh him, in case the fever should take a fatal turn before morning. I would just cuddle down on the floor near to him, and await events.
When I had turned the corner, it surprised me greatly to see ahead of me, over at the front of the barn, the reflection of a light. Creeping along toward it, I came out upon Abner, seated with his back against one of the doors, looking over an account-book by the aid of a lantern perched on a box at his side. He had stood the frame of an old bob-sleigh on end close by, and hung a horse-blanket over it, so that the light might not disturb the women-folk at the other end of the barn. The gun lay on the floor beside him.
He looked up at my approach, and regarded me with something, I fancied, of disapprobation in his habitually grave expression.
“Well, old seventy-six, what’s the matter with you?” he asked, keeping his voice down to make as little noise as possible.
I answered in the same cautious tones that I was feeling bad. Had any encouragement suggested itself in the farmer’s mien, I was prepared to overwhelm him with a relation of my symptoms in detail. But he shook his head instead.
“You’ll have to wait till morning, to be sick,” he said—“that is, to get ’tended to. I don’t know anything about such things, an’ I wouldn’t wake M’rye up now for a whole baker’s dozen o’ you chaps.” Seeing my face fall at this sweeping declaration, he proceeded to modify it in a kindlier tone. “Now you just lay down again, sonny,” he added, “an’ you’ll be to sleep in no time, an’ in the morning M’rye ’ll fix up something for ye. This ain’t no fit time for white folks to be belly-achin’ around.”
“I kind o’ thought I’d feel better if I was sleeping over here near you,” I ventured now to explain, and his nod was my warrant for tiptoeing across to the heap of disorganized furniture, and getting out some blankets and a comforter, which I arranged in the corner a few yards away and simply rolled myself up in, with my face turned away from the light? It was better over here than with Hurley, and though that prompt sleep which the farmer had promised did not come, I at least was drowsily conscious of an improved physical condition.
Perhaps I drifted off more than half-way into dreamland, for it was with a start that all at once I heard some one close by talking with Abner.
“I saw you were up, Mr. Beech”—it was Esther Hagadorn who spoke—“and I don’t seem able to sleep, and I thought, if you didn’t mind, I’d come over here.”
“Why, of course,” the farmer responded. “Just bring up a chair there, an’ sit down. That’s it—wrap the shawl around you good. It’s a cold night—snowin’ hard outside.”
Both had spoken in muffled tones, so as not to disturb the others. This same dominant notion of keeping still deterred me from turning over, in order to be able to see them. I expected to hear them discuss my illness, but they never referred to it. Instead, there was what seemed a long silence. Then the school-ma’am spoke. “I can’t begin to tell you,” she said, “how glad I am that you and your wife aren’t a bit cast down by the—the calamity.”
“No,” came back Abner’s voice, buoyant even in its half-whisper, “we’re all right. I’ve be’n sort o’ figurin’ up here, an’ they ain’t much real harm done. I’m insured pretty well. Of course, this bein’ obleeged to camp out in a hay-barn might be improved on, but then it’s a change—somethin’ out o’ the ordinary rut—an’ it’ll do us good. I’ll have the carpenters over from Juno Mills in the forenoon, an’ if they push things, we can have a roof over us again before Christmas. It could be done even sooner, p’raps, only they ain’t any neighbors to help me with a raisin’ bee. They’re willin’ enough to burn my house down, though. However, I don’t want them not an atom more’n they want me.”
There was no trace of anger in his voice. He spoke like one contemplating the unalterable conditions of life.
“Did they really, do you believe, set it on fire?” Esther asked, intently.
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CHAPTER X—THE FIRE
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