The President's Daughter (Britton)/Chapter 73
My baby was ill. As I try to recall now the exact time of her illness my memory fails me—even to the month. But the memory of the terror of that experience shall stay with me forever.
I had not been home long from a sojourn in the hospital, where I had a slight throat operation, when I began to notice that Elizabeth Ann was not as lively as usual. Then one morning I looked at her closely. Her eyes drooped unnaturally. The circles under her eyes, too, which are a Harding facial characteristic, were darker than usual, and she dragged her dolls and books through the hall with listlessness.
Scott was still abroad and Elizabeth and I were alone with the baby in the apartment at that time. How can I forget how I hung upon every word that fell from Dr. Barbour's lips, every expression that crossed his face when he came to see Elizabeth Ann! To this day I do not know what Elizabeth Ann's trouble was. I doubt if I asked Dr. Barbour at that time. I was a coward. I felt her life was in my doctor's hands and I looked to him. But whatever the trouble, it was serious. She slept most of the time—a heavy, dead sleep from which she seemed scarcely able to open her eyes. Each hour, when medicine time came, I prayed she would swallow the liquid, and when she opened her eyes I demanded of her sharply that she take it. It was like nothing that I have ever known—that sickness of my child. I held her in my arms. Her lips were dry, almost colorless, it seemed. Her eyes always closed. The doctor had ordered that her chest be covered with a white paste-like stuff and then swathed in flannels. She submitted to this treatment with closed eyes and a limpness of body that sent my heart racing with terror. All day I would lie beside her. Often when I awoke in the middle of the night she would be talking. I knew the fever made her talk aloud. God! What days those were! I myself was such an invalid that through the day Elizabeth, my sister, alternately tended me and the baby. But like nervous people, I felt improved as evening came on, and this made it possible for me to care for Elizabeth Ann through the night while my sister slept.
What joy to watch her recover! What sweet pain in my heart to see her sit up in a chair! What gratitude I felt to Dr. Barbour for his excellent ministry! And how often I sobbed myself to sleep, out of sheer thankfulness to God for sparing her to me! And, as a normal two-and-a-half does not require many weeks to regain lost baby plumpness and pink cheeks, soon Elizabeth Ann was opening sparkling eyes in the morning and closing play-tired ones at night. Elizabeth and I would stand over her crib. We needed not the spoken word to read the great relief and gratitude in each other's eyes.