Between the Flowers: A Novel

Chapter 25

· 25 · ,'THE CORN is laid by. The winter wheat is cut. The trees in our orchards promise heaviest yield in years. Cedar Stump School opened last week with Ezrie Cutler back as teacher. Canning and pickling are the order of the day." Delph sat by the kitchen table, and wrote among the jars of cooling jam and little pickled gherkins. She looked at the prickly gherkins, and thought that in winter Marsh liked nothing so well as a plate ofbeans and cornbread with pickled gherkins. She felt something sliding by her nose, and heedless ofwhether it be sweat or tear, she wiped it away and wrote again. "There is little change in the condition of Marsh Gregory. He is now in his third week of typhoid fever. Your correspondent is thankful for such kind neighbors. We thank the neighbor men for bringing in his hay and laying by his corn, and Sober Creekmore and Samuel Fairchild for looking after his cattle. The women are kind to come and help, and Mrs. Elliot keeps the correspondent's child. "The clover hay this year is finer than-." She heard Marsh's shriek, and fat black Emma's troubled soothing. "There, there, you're not in burnin' oil. Look, there's that mornin' glory vine. Whoever saw a mornin' glory vine in th' oil fields Ah'd like to know?" Delph clenched the table when the cry came again, then slowly her fingers dropped away as the voice changed to senseless, broken mutterings. Dorie came to the door. She looked at Delph, and her eyes were kinder than her voice as she said, "Don't set there lookin' 363 BETWEEN THE FLOWERS like th' ghost of some white-livered woman. You'll have to learn to take it like anybody else." "But it's been so long-three weeks an' th' fever not left him." Dorie poured herself a sip of coffee, and waited a time before speaking. "You might as well know, Delph, this-what he's been through is only th' beginnin'. He's got it bad. There was Randal Dick, he lay in fever seventy-three days, an' he was a man bigger an' stronger than Marsh." "Did-did he get well?" "N-o-o. He went when his fever broke. But he was one thing an' Marsh is another.-Lord, Lord, Delph, don't be a cryin' an' a buryin' him 'til he's dead. Why don't you go up an' see if you can't maybe help Sam an' Sober in th' hay? It'll do you good to get out." "1-1 hate to leave." Dorie sighed and set down her coffee cup. "Delph-you might as well know-it's no fault a yours, but did you ever in your life take care of anybody when they were sick?" "N-o-o. Aunt Fronie would never let me learn-she said I was too fidgety-but-." She sprang up and looked at Dorie with jealous angry eyes. "That's not sayin' I can't at least help to look after Marsh. I'm older now-an' stronger. But neither you nor Doctor Andy'ull hardly let me go about him." She whirled and started toward the door, but stopped when Dorie said, "Delph," with the same note of command in her voice she used sometimes with Katy or her grandchildren. She took Delph's bonnet hanging on the kitchen wall and held it out to her. "Delph, this is one time in your life you've got to be sensible . Just because it's your man that's sick is no reason why you, a girl that knows nothin' of nursin' anybody let alone a typhoid patient, can take care of him. Right now Dr. Andy's lookin' all over th' country for a nurse, any kind, either trained or practical, that can manage a typhoid patient like Marsh. An' when she comes you'll not be tip-toein' about him ever' five minutes an' then comin' back to th' kitchen to cry. An' you'll not be sayin', 'Marsh will have a fit if I don't at least put up some pickles an' make a little blackberry jam:I didn't say anything this mornin'-but, Delph, you've got to see you can't be heatin' th' house up with cannin' an' goin' on just because you think it's what he'd want you to do." [3.145.152.98] Project...