As Lyman Gage went up the steps to Miss Marilla’s front porch a sick thrill of cold and weariness passed over his big frame. Every joint and muscle seemed to cry out in protest, and his very vitals seemed sore and racked. The bit of bright evening was over, and he was facing his own gray life again with a future that was void and empty. But the door was not shut. Miss Marilla was hovering anxiously inside with the air of just having retreated from the porch. She gave a little relieved gasp as he entered.
“Oh, I was afraid you wouldn’t come back,” she said eagerly. “And I did so want to thank you and tell you how we—how I—yes, I mean we, for I know she loved that singing—how very much we have enjoyed it. I shall[68] always thank God that He sent you along just then.”
“Well, I certainly have cause to thank you for that wonderful dinner,” he said earnestly, as he might have spoken to a dear relation, “and for all this”—he waved his big hand toward the bright room—“this pleasantness. It was like coming home, and I haven’t any home to come to now.”
“Oh! Haven’t you?” said Miss Marilla caressingly. “Oh, haven’t you?” she said again wistfully. “I wonder why I can’t keep you a little while, then. You seem just like my own nephew—as I had hoped he would be—I haven’t seen him in a long time. Where were you going when I stopped you?”
The young man lifted heavy eyes that were bloodshot and sore to the turning, and tried to smile. To save his life he couldn’t lie blithely when it[69] seemed so good to be in that warm room.
“Why—I was—I don’t know—I guess I just wasn’t going anywhere. To tell you the truth, I was all in, and down on my luck, and as blue as indigo when you met me. I was just tramping anywhere to get away from it.”
“You poor boy!” said Miss Marilla, putting out her fine little blue-veined hands and caressing the old khaki sleeve. “Well, then you’re just going to stay with me and get rested. There’s no reason in the world why you shouldn’t.”
“No, indeed!” said Lyman Gage, drawing himself up bravely, “I couldn’t think of it. It wouldn’t be right. But I certainly thank you with all my heart for what you have done for me to-night. I really must go at once.”
“But where?” she asked pathetically, as if he belonged to her, sliding her[70] hands detainingly down to his big rough ones.
“Oh, anywhere, it doesn’t matter!” he said, holding her delicate little old hand in his with a look of sacred respect as if a nice old angel had offered to hold hands with him. “I’m a soldier, you know; and a few storms more or less won’t matter. I’m used to it. Good night.”
He clasped her hands a moment, and was about to turn away; but she held his fingers eagerly.
“You shall not go that way!” she declared. “Out into the cold without any overcoat, and no home to go to! Your hands are hot, too. I believe you have a fever. You’re going to stay here to-night and have a good sleep and a warm breakfast; and then, if you must go, all right. My spare bed is all made up, and there’s a fire in the Franklin heater. The room’s as warm[71] as toast, and Mary put a big bouquet of chrysanthemums up there. If you don’t sleep there, it will all be wasted. You must stay.”
“No, it wouldn’t be right.” He shook his head again, and smiled wistfully. “What would people say?”
“Say! Why, they’ve got it in the paper that you’re to be here—at least, that Dick’s to be here. They’ll think you’re my nephew and think nothing else about it. Besides, I guess I have a right to have company if I like.”
“If there was any way I could pay you,” said the young man. “But I haven’t a cent to my name, and no telling how long before I will have anything. I really couldn’t accept any such hospitality.”
“Oh, that’s all right,” said Miss Marilla cheerily. “You can pay me if you like, sometime when you get plenty; or perhaps you’ll take me in when I’m[72] having a hard time. Anyhow, you’re going to stay. I won’t take no for an answer. I’ve been disappointed and disappointed about Dick’s coming, and me having no one to show for all the years of the war, just making sweaters for the world, it seemed like, with no one belonging to me; and now I’ve got a soldier, and I’m going to keep him at least for one night. Nobody’s to know but you’re my own nephew, and I haven’t got to go around the town, have I, telling that Dick didn’t care enough for his old country aunt to come out and take dinner with her? It’s nothing to them, is it, if they think he came and stayed overnight too? Or even a few days. Nobody’ll be any the wiser, and I’ll take a lot more comfort.”
“I’d like to accommodate you,” faltered the soldier; “but you know I really ought—” Suddenly the big fellow was seized with a fit of sneezing,[73] and the sick sore thrills danced all down his back, and slapped him in the face, and pricked him in the throat, and banged against his head. He dropped weakly down in a chair, and got out the discouragedest-looking handkerchief that ever a soldier carried. It looked as if it might have washed the decks on the way over, or wiped off shoes, as doubtless it had; and it left a dull streak of olive-drab dust on his cheek and chin when he had finished polishing off the last sneeze and lifted his suffering eyes to his hostess.
“You’re sick!” declared Miss Marilla with a kind of satisfaction, as if now she had got something she could really take hold of. “I’ve thought it all the evening. I first laid it to the wind in your face, for I knew you weren’t the drinking kind; and then I thought maybe you’d had to be up all night last night or something; lack of sleep makes[74] eyes look that way; but I believe you’ve got the grippe, and I’m going to put you to bed and give you some homeopathic medicine. Come, tell me the truth. Aren’t you chilly?”
With a half-sheepish smile the soldier admitted that he was, and a big involuntary shudder ran over his tall frame with the admission.
“Well, it’s high time we got to work. There’s plenty of hot water; and you go up to the bathroom, and take a hot bath. I’ll put a hot-water bag in the bed, and get it good and warm; and I’ve got a long, warm flannel nightgown I guess you can get on. It was made for grandmother, and she was a big woman. Come, we’ll go right up-stairs. I can come down and shut up the house while you’re taking your bath.”
The soldier protested, but Miss Marilla swept all before her. She locked[75] the front door resolutely, and put the chain on. She turned out the parlor light, and shoved the young man before her to the stairs.
“But I oughtn’t to,” he protested again with one foot on the first step. “I’m an utter stranger.”
“Well, what’s that?” said Miss Marilla crisply. “‘I was a stranger, and ye took me in.’ When it comes to that, we’re all strangers. Come, hurry up; you ought to be in bed. You’ll feel like a new man when I get you tucked up.”
“You’re awfully good,” he murmured, stumbling up the stairs, with a sick realization that he was giving way to the little imps of chills and thrills that were dancing over him, that he was all in, and in a few minutes more he would be a contemptible coward, letting a lone, old woman fuss over him this way.
Miss Marilla turned up the light,[76] and threw back the covers of the spare bed, sending a whiff of lavender through the room. The Franklin heater glowed cheerfully, and the place was warm as toast. There was something sweet and homelike in the old-fashioned room with its queer, ancient framed photographs of people long gone, and its plain but fine old mahogany. The soldier raised his bloodshot eyes, and looked about with a thankful wish that he felt well enough to appreciate it all.
Miss Marilla had pulled open a drawer, and produced a long, fine flannel garment of nondescript fashion; and from a closet she drew forth a long pink bathrobe and a pair of felt slippers.
“There! I guess you can get those on.”
She bustled into the bathroom, turned on the hot water, and heaped big[77] white bath-towels and sweet-scented soap upon him. In a kind of daze of thankfulness he stumbled into the bathroom, and began his bath. He hadn’t had a bath like that in—was it two years? Somehow the hot water held down the nasty little sick thrills, and cut out the chills for the time. It was wonderful to feel clean and warm, and smell the freshness of the towels and soap. He climbed into the big nightgown which also smelled of lavender, and came forth presently with the felt slippers on the front of his feet, and the pink bathrobe trailing around his shoulders. There was a meek, conquered expression on his face; and he crept gratefully into the warm bed according to directions, and snuggled down with that sick, sore thrill of thankfulness that everybody who has ever had grippe knows.
Miss Marilla bustled up from down-stairs[78] with a second hot-water bag in one hand and a thermometer in the other.
“I’m going to take your temperature,” she said briskly, and stuck the thermometer into his unresisting mouth. Somehow it was wonderfully sweet to be fussed over this way, almost like having a mother. He hadn’t had such care since he was a little fellow in the hospital at prep school.
“I thought so!” said Miss Marilla, casting a practised eye at the thermometer a moment later. “You’ve got quite a fever; and you’ve got to lie right still, and do as I say, or you’ll have a time of it. I hate to think what would have happened to you if I’d been weak enough to let you go off into the cold without any overcoat............