When Mrs. Falconer had drawn near John's hut on the morning of his
misfortune, it was past noon despite all her anxious, sorrowful haste to
reach him. His wounds had been dressed. The crowd of people that had
gathered about his cabin were gone back to their occupations or their
homes--except a group that sat on the roots of a green tree several yards
from his door. Some of these were old wilderness folk living near by who had
offered to nurse him and otherwise to care for his comforts and needs.
The affair furnished them that renewed interest in themselves which is so liable
to revisit us when we have escaped a fellow-creature's suffering but can
relate good things about ourselves in like risks and dangers; and they were
drawing out their reminiscences now with unconscious gratitude for so
excellent an opportunity befalling them in these peaceful unadventurous
days. Several of John's boys lay in the grass and hung upon these
narratives. Now and then they cast awe-stricken glances at his door which
had been pushed to, that he might be quiet; or, if his pain would let him,
drop into a little sleep. They made it their especial care, when any
new-comer hurried past, to arrest him with the command that he must not go
in; and they would thus have stopped Mrs. Falconer but she put them gently
aside without heed or hearing.
When she softly pushed the door open, John was not asleep. He lay in a
corner on his low hard bed of skins against the wall of logs-- his eyes wide
open, the hard white glare of the small shutter-less window falling on his
face. He turned to her the look of a dumb animal that can say nothing of why
it has been wounded or of how it is suffering; stretched out his hand
gratefully; and drew her toward him. She sat down on the edge of the bed,
folded her quivering fingers across his temples, smoothed back his heavy,
coarse, curling hair, and bending low over his eyes, rained down into them
the whole unuttered, tearless passion of her distress, her sympathy.
Major Falconer came for her within the hour and she left with him almost as
soon as he arrived.
When she was gone, John lay thinking of her.
"What a nurse she is!" he said, remembering how she had concerned herself
solely his about life, his safety, his wounds. Once she had turned quickly: "Now you can't go away!" she had said with a smile that touched him deeply.
"I wish you didn't have to go!" he had replied mourningfully, feeling his
sudden dependence on her.