Poor, Dear Margaret KirbyNorris, Kathleen Thompson
General
Poor, Dear Margaret Kirby
Norris, Kathleen Thompson
American fiction -- 20th century; Short stories
"We won't frighten him," Susanna assured her tenderly. "But will you
tell us your name so we may let him know?"
The injured woman frowned. "I did tell you--didn't I?" she asked
painfully.
"No"--Susanna would use this tone in her nursery some day--"No, dear,
not yet."
"Tell us again," said the doctor, with too obvious an intention to
soothe.
The woman gave him a look full of dignified reproach.
"If I could rest on your porch a little while," she said to Susanna,
ignoring the others rather purposely, "I should be quite myself again.
That will be best. Then I can think--I can't think now. These
people--and my head--"
And she tried to rise, supporting herself with a hand on Susanna's arm.
But with the effort the last vestige of color left her face, and she
slipped, unconscious, back to the grass.
"Dead?" asked Susanna, very white.
"No--no! Only fainted," Dr. Whitney said. "But I don't like it," he
added, his finger at the limp wrist.
"Bring her in, won't you?" Susanna urged with sudden decision. "I
simply can't let her be taken 'way up to town! This way--"
And, relieved to have it settled, she led them swiftly across the
garden and into the house, flung down the snowy covers of the
guest-room bed, and with Emma's sympathetic help established the
stranger therein.
"Trouble," whispered the injured woman apologetically, when she opened
her eyes upon walls and curtains rioting with pink roses, and felt the
delicious softness and freshness of the linen and pillows about her.
"Oh, don't think of that--I love to do it!" Susanna said honestly,
patting her head. "A nurse is coming up from the village to look out
for you, and she and the doctor are going to make you more comfortable."
The woman, fixing her with a dazed yet curiously intent look, formed
with her lips the words, "God bless you," and wearily shut her eyes.
Susanna, slipping out of the room a few minutes later, said over and
over again to herself, "I don't care--I'm glad I did it!"
Still, it was not very reassuring to hear the big hall clock strike
six, and suddenly to notice the orphanage plans lying where they had
been flung on the hall table.
"I wish it was the middle of next year," said Susanna, thoughtfully,
going out to sink wearily into a porch chair, "or even next week! I'd
pretend to be asleep when Jim came home to-night," she went on
gloomily, "if it wasn't my duty to sit up and explain that there are a
perfect stranger and a trained nurse in the house. Of course, being
there as I was, any humane person would have to do what I did, but it
does seem strange, this day of all days, that I had to be there! And I
wish I had thought to send those plans in by messenger--that would have
been one thing the less to worry about, at least!--What is it, Emma?"
For Emma, mildly repeating some question, had come out to the porch.
"Would you like tea, Mrs. Fairfax? I could bring it out here like you
had it last week with your book."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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