children are apt to be when one is not well. I came home and looked at the chicken and rice. But that would not do. They would have made me cry. So I hurried out again, away from them, and away from the meadow, and walked in the woods all that Saturday afternoon, thinking to and fro,—not so violently as in the morning, for I was weaker, but very confusedly and in endless perplexity. How could I stay in Greenville? I should have to be with Jim! But how could I go? What reason had I to give? and what would people think was my reason? But would it not be wrong to stay and see Jim? But it would be wrong to break my engagement to the school committee!
At length again the clock struck five, which was supper-time, and I saw myself no nearer the end of my difficulties; and I had to say once again, "God help me! God have mercy on me!" and so went home.
Mrs. Johnson was awaiting me, with this letter for me in her pocket. It is not in Fanny's handwriting, however, but in that of a friend of ours with whom she was staying, Mrs. Physick, the wife of the most eminent of the younger physicians in Beverly, our native town. I opened it hastily and read:—
"Friday.
"My dear Katie:—
"You must not be uneasy at my writing instead of Fannie, as the Doctor thinks it too great an effort for her. She has had an attack of influenza, not very severe, but you know she is never very strong, and I am afraid she is too much afraid of calling on me for any little thing she wants done. So we think, the Doctor and I, it would do her good to have a little visit from you. She wanted us to wait for the summer vacation, so as not to alarm you; but you know that is three whole weeks off, and nobody knows how much better she may be within that time. The Doctor says, suggest to Katie that the committee might, under the circumstances, agree to her ending the spring term a little earlier than usual, and beginning a little earlier in the fall.
"Yours as ever,
"Julia.
"P. S. You must not be anxious about dear Fannie. She has brightened up very much already at the mere thought of seeing you. Her cough is not half so troublesome as it was a week ago, and the Doctor says her very worst symptom is weakness. She says she must write one word herself."
O what a tremulous word!
"Dear Katy:—
"Do come if you can, and don't be anxious. Indeed I am growing stronger every day, and eating so much meat, and drinking so much whiskey. It does me a great deal of good, and would a great deal more if I could only tell how we were ever to [pay for it, I knew she would have said; but Dr. Physick had evidently interposed; for the signature,]
"Your mutinous and obstreperous
"Sister Fanny,"
was prefaced with a scratched-out involuntary "℞," and looked like a prescription.
I might be as sad as I would now; and who could wonder? I sat down where I was standing on the door-step, and held the letter helplessly up to Mrs. Johnson. It did seem to me now as if Fate was going to empty its whole quiver of arrows at once upon me, and meant to kill me, body and soul. But I have since thought sometimes, when I have heard people say, Misfortunes never came single, and How mysterious it was! that God only dealt with us, in that respect somewhat as some surgeons think it best to do with wounded men,—perform whatever operations are necessary, immediately after the first injury, so as to make one and the same "shock" take the place of more. In this way of Providence, I am sure I have repeatedly seen accumulated sorrows, which, if distributed through longer intervals, might have darkened a
