THE CROSS UPREARED

Mr. Blee had but reported Will correctly, and it was not until some hours later that the child at Newtake caused his parents any alarm.  Then he awoke in evident suffering, and Will, at Phoebe’s frantic entreaty, arose and was soon galloping down through the night for Doctor Parsons.

His thundering knock fell upon the physician’s door, and a moment later a window above him was opened.

“Why can’t you ring the bell instead of making that fiendish noise, and waking the whole house?  Who is it?”

“Blanchard, from Newtake.”

“What’s wrong?”

“’T is my bwoy.  He’ve got something amiss with his breathing parts by the looks of it.”

“Ah.”

“Doan’t delay.  Gert fear comed to his mother under the darkness, ’cause he seemed nicely when he went to sleep, then woke up worse.  So I felt us had better not wait till morning.”

“I’ll be with you in five minutes.”

Soon the Doctor appeared down a lane from the rear of the house.  He was leading his horse by the bridle.

“I’m better mounted than you,” he said, “so I’ll push forward.  Every minute saved is gained.”

Will thanked him, and Doctor Parsons disappeared.  When the father reached home, it was to hear that his child was seriously ill, though nothing of a final nature could be done to combat the sickness until it assumed a more definite form.

“It’s a grave case,” said the physician, drearily in the dawn, as he pulled on his gloves and discussed the matter with Will before departing.  “I’ll be up again to-night.  We mustn’t overlook the proverbial vitality of the young, but if you are wise you will school your mind and your wife’s to be resigned.  You understand.”

He stroked his peaked naval beard, shook his head, then mounted his horse and was gone.

From that day forward life stood still at Newtake, in so far as it is possible for life to do so, and a long-drawn weariness of many words dragged dully of a hundred pages would be necessary to reflect that tale of noctural terrors and daylight respites, of intermittent fears, of nerve-shattering suspense, and of the ebb and flow of hope through a fortnight of time.  Overtaxed and overwrought, Phoebe ceased to be of much service in the sick-room after a week without sleep; Will did all that he could, which was little enough; but his mother took her place in the house unquestioned at this juncture, and ruled under Doctor Parsons.  The struggle seemed to make her younger again, to rub off the slow-gathering rust of age and charm up all her stores of sense and energy.

So they battled for that young life.  More than once a shriek from Phoebe would echo to the farm that little Will was gone; and yet he lived; many a time the child’s father in his strength surveyed the perishing atom, and prayed to take the burden, all too heavy for a baby’s shoulders.  In one mood he supplicated, in another cursed Heaven for its cruelty.