Dr. Lavendar's People

"Yes, Annie."

"Well, then, be dead."

"I can't, Annie. Now let us talk of something else. Tell me what the black hen did when the speckled hen stole her nest."

Annie joyously told her story, as she had told it dozens of times before; while Harriet Hutchinson turned her face to the wall. Annie sat on her heels on the floor beside the bed, rocking back and forth, and talking: "And so the speckled hen flew off. Sister, I'll get you your big bottle?"

No answer.

"Sister, don't you want to smell the bottle?"

"No, Annie. No – no —no! Oh, Annie, don't you want to go and see your chickens?"

"Why not?"

"Because it wouldn't be right, Annie."

"Why wouldn't it be right, sister?"

"Because," said Harriet Hutchinson – "because I suppose that's one of the things that would 'make it harder for those that stand by.'"

"I don't understand," poor old Annie said, timidly.

"Well, Annie, that's the only reason I know of. Oh, Annie, Annie! it is the only reason there is; it is the root of its being wrong." … And then the long moan. When Miss Annie heard that sound she shivered all over; it was the elemental protest of the flesh, which cannot understand the regal and unconquered soul.

Those were hard days for Willy King, what with his affection and his sympathy and his daily struggles with Miss Annie; "for she is frantic," he told Dr. Lavendar. They were walking up the hill together in the late afternoon. Miss Harriet had sent for the old man, on whom now she leaned even more than on William King, for Dr. Lavendar gave her granite words instead of Willy's tenderer sympathy. "She insists that I shall give Miss Harriet something – 'stuff out of Harriet's bottle,' she says. I suppose she means chloroform. I wish to God I could."

"God will do His own work, William."

"Yes, sir; but it's such a waste – this courage that fairly breaks our hearts."

"Waste! William, what are you talking about? We are every one of us richer for it. I told her so yesterday."

"Well," said William King, thoughtfully, "perhaps so; in this case we are richer, I admit. But suppose it were a baby that was suffering – or a dog? Only, we wouldn't let the dog suffer. Dr. Lavendar, one of these days – you and I won't live to see it, but one of these days – "

"There is Miss Annie now," said Dr. Lavendar. "Why – look at her!"

The old woman came fluttering down the path towards the green gate in the privet hedge; she was smoothing her hair back from her temples, with her strange, girlish gesture, and she was smiling, but there was a new and solemn age in her face that made the two men look at each other, startled and wondering.

"Dr. Lavendar! Willy!" she said, her voice breaking with joy, "Harriet is dead – oh, Harriet is dead!"

They stopped short in the pathway. "What – what?" stammered William King.

"Oh, Harriet is dead!" the old woman said; "and I'm so happy." She came and leaned on the closed gate at the foot of the path, smiling up into their faces. "She isn't hurt any more. Oh, I can breathe, I can breathe, now," said Miss Annie, laying her withered hands upon her throat and drawing a deep breath.

"When?" said the doctor.

"Oh, just a little while ago. As soon as she got dead I opened the windows and let the air blow in; she likes the wind when she isn't hurt."

William King said, suddenly, "My God!" and turned and ran up the path, into the house, into the room, where, indeed, there was no more hurting.

"Annie," Dr. Lavendar said, "were you with her?"

"Yes," Miss Annie said. "Harriet was hurt very much. But when she smelled her bottle she stopped being hurt."

Dr. Lavendar leaned against the gate, his breath wavering; then he sat down on the grass, and rested his forehead on his hands clasped on the top of his stick. He was unable to speak. Miss Annie came out into the road and looked at him curiously. After a while he said, feebly, "Annie, tell me about it."

"Willy wouldn't give Harriet sugar in a paper to stop the hurting. And Harriet said she couldn't get her bottle. She said it would be wrong for her to get it."

Dr. Lavendar lifted his head with a quick gesture of relief. "What! Harriet, didn't get it herself?"

"Oh no," Miss Annie said. "I got it. And I went into Harriet's room. Harriet's eyes were shut, and she was – was moaning," said Miss Annie, shivering. "So I put some stuff out of the bottle on a towel and held it for Harriet to smell. And Harriet opened her eyes and looked frightened, and she said, 'No, no!' And I said, 'Yes; I'm the oldest and you must do what I say.' And she said, 'Augustine! Augustine!' But Augustine can't hear. And I held it down and I said, 'You won't be hurt any more.' And Harriet pushed it away and said 'No.' And then she shut her eyes. And after a while she didn't say anything more. And I held it, oh, a long time. And then I looked, and Harriet's eyes were shut. And now she's dead! And it doesn't hurt any more. You come and look at her, and you'll see it doesn't hurt any more. Now she wouldn't thank King George to be her uncle! Oh, she's dead," said Miss Annie, nodding her head and laughing; "a happy sleep." She was standing there in the dusty road in front of him, telling the story, her hands behind her, rocking slightly backward and forward, like a child repeating a lesson. The long afternoon shadows stretched from the trees across the road, and, swaying lightly, flecked her gray head with sunshine.

"Annie," said Dr. Lavendar, "come here and sit beside me."

She came, happily enough, and let him take her hand and hold it, patting it softly for a moment before he spoke.

"Annie, it was not right to give Harriet the stuff out of the bottle; our Heavenly Father stops the hurting when He thinks best. So it does not please Him for us to do it when we think best."

"But Willy gave Harriet one sugar in a paper, and that stopped it a little," Miss Annie said, puzzled; "and if he stopped it a little, why shouldn't it all be stopped?" The obvious logic of the poor mind admitted of no answer – certainly no argument.

Dr. Lavendar said, gravely, stroking the hand, as wrinkled as his own: "It was not right, my child. You will believe me when I say so? And I do not want any one to know that you did a thing that was not right. So I want you to promise me now that you will not tell any one that you did it. Will you promise me?"

"Willy knows it, I guess," Miss Annie said.

Dr. Lavendar was silent. Just what had William heard her say? Only that Miss Harriet was "dead." "I am pretty sure that Willy doesn't know it," he said, slowly. "And I am quite sure he would prefer not to know it; so you mustn't tell him. But you can't understand about that, Annie. You'll just have to believe me. Will you promise me?"

"Why, yes," Miss Annie said, indifferently, smiling up at the moving leaves. "Oh, Harriet isn't hurt now!"

Dr. Lavendar trembled with anxiety. "I want a solemn promise, Annie. What do the children do when they make a solemn promise?"

Miss Annie was instantly interested. "Why, they cross their breast and say 'honest and true'; don't you know?" …

"Well, then," said Dr. Lavendar, slowly, "you will make a promise to me in that way." He stood up and took her hand, his face very pale. "Promise me that never, so long as you live, will you tell any one – any one, Annie – that you made Harriet fall asleep by giving her the big bottle to smell. Now, make the promise, Annie."

Miss Annie slowly crossed her breast. "I promise," she said, in a low voice; her eyes, widening with awe, were fixed on his face. "I promise:

"Honest and true,Black and black and blue,Lay me downAnd cut me in two —

if I do."

"Amen!" said Dr. Lavendar; and took off his hat, and stood looking up into the sky, his lip trembling. "Father," he said, "I don't even say 'forgive her!' She is Thy little child." And then they stood for a moment hand in hand in the sunny silence.

THE END