Whitney_Hitherto.txt topic ['13', '324', '378', '393']
down ! " she thrust
out her elbow at me ; then lifting it, she beckoned
nearer.
saw her point to the baby's face. whispered ; but
heard what she said.
" spazzum ! me some brandy ! "
" ! " cried. " me what it is. can't be quiet
unless you do."
4G8 :
" , it aint much, guess ; only it oughter to be seen to.
kind of a ketch in her breath, or her cirkleation, or some-
thing. keep still, or less we shall have you to look
after."
came back with the brandy. mixed a few
drops in water, as . told him, and she gave it to the
child.
" 's fetched back the color a little. guess she'll do.
tell you was scared ! didn't know don't know
certain yet but what "
whispered again, and again my sharpened senses caught
it.
" might be a blue baby. they don't live."
" . , hear every word. should hear you think
now. must tell me every single thing. , come
here. she really better ? "
" looks better. doctor is coming, now. 't be
frightened, . would be worst of all, for all of
us."
" . won't be frightened. will keep just as still !
, you must tell me everything. always know things,
. shall know worse than you do, if you let me
alone."
" 've no doubt of that, you bad little woman," said .
he was pale, too. good ! , knew
would not take back his little daughter from him, now !
doctor looked grave. could not tell, he said.
were obscure things ; it was what we could not touch ; we
could only be very careful, and wait.
brandy was right, he told . might have
saved her life. stimulus, to give nature a start.
had the thing to do, if it were done.
then presently, he sat down and told how it
was. would not let them go away into another room.
would hear it all.
was a little valve, between two parts of the heart, that
ought to close, perfectly, at birth. it did not, at
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once. it never did. that was a "blue
baby."
we could reach.
little heart ! begun to play ! rightly ; fill
perfectly with dear life ! should we do, and ,
if the little valve would not shut? the tiny, awful mech-
anism failed, and stopped !
" her so," said the doctor. " not change her
position. not let her be turned upon her side.
her ; and if the paleness comes, give her the brandy."
put a pillow in the nurse's lap and she rested the baby
upon it.
kept her on that pillow all the day ; all the night.
bedtime came, made . go to rest.
put the pillow on the bed beside me. asked to have it.
told them should not sleep if they took her away, where
could not see, could not know. would sleep, if they
would let me have her.
sat beside the bed all night.
1 slept because had promised ; because knew must.
every time waked, there was the little face, pale, but life-
like, on the pillow, and there was , with his eyes
always on the little face.
" breathes better," we said to each other.
" sleeps quietly."
" lips are not so white."
" nails are not so blue."
" can't help hoping," said , softly. "
! don't you go to hoping ! "
then would shut my eyes to please him ; saying
nothing.
time, the lips had a faint trace of better color.
time, the little face looked somewhat pinker. time,
found bending over to see these things, or to lift the
corner of the little blanket, gently, on which rested the atom
of a hand.
" isn't much, yet ; it don't amount to very much ; don't
you count upon it, ; but yet can't help hoping."
470 :
was broad daylight when roused wholly, after a long,
sweet nap, into which fell with 's words repeating
themselves, soothingly, in my brain.
" can't help can't help hoping ! "
sat there just as he had sat all night.
dear little bit of a face, warm with sleep, was almost
rosy. was no blueness around the mouth, nor under
the little, tender nails. looked up, together, from it.
" don't hardly dare to say it, ; and you mustn't
believe it, till the doctor comes. that valve's shut ! "
suppose it was. suppose the wonderful mystery, be-
yond our ken and handling, had perfected its own office ; that
the little beat and count were established that should be the
pulse of a human life.
it has beat on, and we still have our child.
" was so strange," we said, after our breath came freely,
and the da3 r s went by. " hung upon a little, trembling
membrane, out of our reach, that might draw close, or that
might not. little we know about the valves, any of
them ! "
" ," said , jerking up both elbows at once
as she finished the baby's toilette with a little pin in the laced
robe-front, and drew all smoothly down. " the beauty
of that is, that we haven't got to do with the valves. we've
got to do is to go ahead and breathe."
thought how all my life had been feeling for the valves.
" shall we call her? " asked of me.
" , there is only one name ! christened her all
that night. . a little it was, when you kept
telling me shouldn't ! "
" yet," said again, "it won't be , after
all. never was such a true name as that."
" is true, too, and cheery. tells the rest of it.
a way ! "
thing happened, a few weeks after, that can never
think of without a great throb of humble love, and a great
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shudder also, at the weight of punishment it showed me might
have been.
sat in our room, holding little in his arms.
had gone, and was busy at some drawers,
putting away and changing things, and making cosey, comfort-
able arrangements for settling down to the sole care of my
child.
was curious and touching to see hold that tender
little thing in his great, strong arms, and lift it against his
broad, sheltering bosom. rested there like a little wind-
flower born against a hill-side.
looked in the tiny face as if the fair, innocent eyes and
the dawning smile told years full of blessed stories to him
for the time to come.
he reached her out to me.
" the dear heaven's sake ! , take the child ! 've
got something that must attend to before 'm an hour older !
't wait tea for me. 'm going in to , to see
. 'll be married and off to-morrow ! "
minutes after, he went out of the yard, on horseback.
could hear 's feet strike into their swiftest trot as
he went down the hill.
that he could not help answering my questions when
he came home. don't know whether he might have done it,
if lie had not startled me so, and left me in such an as-
tonishment. '
" wanted- to get this," he told me, taking out a folded
paper from his breast-pocket, long and legal-looking.
had come into the little tea-room, and had just
put the tray on the table for him, and gone out again into the
kitchen.
" 've torn the signature off, and now it must go into the
fii'e. made my will, , four years ago. is all.
we hadn't any little , you know."
, knew. knew that the word was true with a sig-
nificance that he did not purposely put into it.
reached my hand out, and took it from him. would see
this will of 's, before he burned it. would see what
472 , :
thought had been in his heart four j r ears ago ; when he hadn't
any, little hope !
let me have it, though think it had hardly been his
meaning.
took it to the window, to read it by the waning light,
while he drank his tea.
read a new page in his great, generous, silent life.
saw where, in a fresh point, his manhood touched, as
had demanded that manhood should, the ; the
that can care for the unthankful and the evil ; the
loving, giving, and forgiving .
sat there still, in the gathering dusk. tears fell
down, hot, upon the unfolded paper.
turned round, present^, wondering. he got
up and came over to me.
" , ! " he said. " wifie ! "
" ! " sobbed, with my hands in his, and my
head bowed down upon them. " this had come to me
then, two years ago, should have gone away, like ,
and hanged myself." -
those are old times, now ; to , and little ,
and , and me. talk them, over, some of them,
when we are together.
is fifteen now.
lives at . husband built a
house there, near the . neighborhood is wider
now, and rich with cultured and friendly life. 's life has
widened, also, to its privilege and power. is large and
beautiful.
has three glorious boys, and a fair little daughter, -
stiss.
has never married.
is the true, strong, outgiving friend of us all.
said that people who would tell of to-day should wait un-
til it had become yesterday. may do better.
may wait till the yesterdays, in their turn, have become to-
day. that is what they do. is what they are
made for, and the process of them. 's yesterdays
make up his grand -day. the soul wakes to the
light of his meaning for it, its morning has begun.
thank him that see mine high already over the hori-
zon.
now, am up the hill ; and the top is a green table-
land ; like the grand, beautiful reaches that lie beyond the
edges of wild, precipitous western bluffs, toward the sunset ;
a long, fertile joy.
, beyond the sunset, are the of .