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CHAPTER XVI
HOUSEKEEPER AND NURSE
“I must be going on,” Doctor Morrison continued, finishing his writing at the kitchen table which the entrance of Bob and Betty had evidently interrupted. “Here are a few directions for you, Betty. I do not think there will be anything for you to do to-night. Both should sleep right through, and I’ll be out in the morning. I have made a bed for you on the parlor sofa, and one for Bob here in the kitchen. I thought you’d want to be near the patients. And, then, too, the rooms upstairs are damp and musty; evidently the upper floor of the house hasn’t been used for some time. Now are you sure you will be all right? Does Mr. Gordon know you are here?”
Bob explained that they had left a message for Mr. Gordon at the Watterby farm, and Doctor Morrison, who of course knew of the fire, nodded understandingly. Then he bade them good-night, promising to make them his first call in the morning.
“I’ll go out and bed down the horses and feed the stock,” said Bob, after the light of the doctor’s car had disappeared down the road. “Do go to bed, Betty; you’re all tuckered out.”
But Betty flatly refused to stay in the house without Bob. She tagged sleepily after him while he carried water to the horses and cows, bedded them down and littered the pig pens with fresh straw. He bolted the doors of the barns and hen house and made everything snug for the night. Then he and Betty went back to the house, having stabled their own horses in two empty stalls that, judging from the dusty hay in the mangers, had not been used recently.
Both patients were sleeping, breathing rather heavily and hoarsely, it is true, but apparently resting comfortably. Betty and Bob were thoroughly tired out and glad to say good-night and go to bed. As Betty snuggled down on the comfortable old couch, she thought how kind of the doctor to have made things ready for them.
The sun streaming in through the windows woke her the next morning. With a start she jumped up and put on her slippers and blue robe. With the healthy vigor of youth she had slept without once waking during the night, and not once had the thought of her patients disturbed her. Cautiously she tiptoed into the two bedrooms. Miss Charity and Miss Hope were sleeping quietly. A swift peep into the kitchen showed her a fire snapping briskly in the stove and the teakettle sending out clouds of steam. Bob was nowhere in sight.
“He’s out at the barn,” thought Betty. “I must hurry and get breakfast.”
She dressed quickly but trimly, as usual, and raised the windows of the parlor. Screens or not, she felt the house would be the better for quantities of fresh air. She closed the door softly and went down the narrow little passage into the kitchen.
She found a bowl of nice-looking eggs in the pantry and a piece of home-cured bacon neatly sewed into a white muslin bag and partly sliced. This, with slices of golden brown toast – the bread box held only half a loaf of decidedly stale bread – solved her breakfast menu. There were two pans of milk standing on the table, thick with yellow cream, and Betty was just wondering if Bob had milked and when, for the cream could not have risen under two or three hours’ time, when the boy came whistling cheerfully in, carrying a pail of foaming milk.
“Sh!” warned Betty. “Don’t wake your aunts up. When did you milk, Bob? You can’t have done it twice in one morning.”
“Well hardly,” admitted Bob, lowering his voice discreetly. “I went out last night after I was sure you were asleep. I knew the cows had to be milked and that you’d probably insist on staying out there if you went to sleep standing up. So I took a lantern I found under the bench on the back porch and went out about an hour after you went to bed. Gee, fried eggs and bacon! You’re a good cook, Betsey!”
Betty had spread one end of the table with a clean brown linen cloth, and now, after Bob had washed his hands and she had strained the milk, she placed the smoking hot dishes before him, and they proceeded to enjoy the meal heartily.
“I wonder if the fire is out,” said Betty anxiously. “Perhaps Doctor Morrison will know when he comes. What are you going to do now, Bob?”
“You tell me what will help you,” answered Bob. “I suppose you have to cook breakfast for the aunts – doesn’t that sound funny? I thought I’d kind of hang around the house – you might want furniture moved or something like that – till you had ’em all fixed comfy, and then you could go out to the barn with me while I finished out there. It’s lonesome in a new place.”
“Sometimes I think,” announced Betty, stopping with the frying pan in her hand and beaming upon Bob, “that you have more sense than any one I ever knew. You needn’t do a thing, if you’ll just wait for me. There’s a pile of old magazines in the parlor. You can read the stories in those.”
Leaving Bob comfortably established in a padded rocking chair, she went in to see if either of her patients was awake. Both were, as it happened, and though they looked slightly bewildered at first, Betty soon recalled to their minds her coming and the visit from the doctor. Both were very weak, and Miss Charity still was voiceless, but their eyes were clear and there was no sign of delirium.
Betty had brought an enveloping white apron and cap with her, and she presented an immaculate little figure as she gently sponged the hands and faces of the old ladies and made their beds tidy and smooth. Doctor Morrison had ordered water toast and weak tea for their breakfast, and when Betty went out to the kitchen to prepare two trays she found that Bob had pumped two pails of fresh water, cleared the table and stacked the dishes in the dishpan and was taking up ashes from the stove while he waited for the kettle of water which he had put on for them to heat.
“I thought you’d need the teakettle yourself,” observed this energetic young man, a streak of soot across his forehead in no way detracting from his engaging smile. “I’ll have to put in an hour or so chopping wood this afternoon. The box will be empty by noon.”
Betty found that both her patients were too weak to feed themselves, so she had to handle one tray at a time. The meal was barely over when Doctor Morrison drove up. He found Bob washing dishes and Betty drying them.
“Well, well, you look as bright as two dollars,” said the gray old doctor merrily. “You don’t need any prescriptions, that’s evident. How are the sick ladies, Miss Nurse?”
“They slept all night – at least, I think they did,” she reported conscientiously. “I never woke up, and I think I would have heard them call, for the door from the parlor was left open and their doors too, of course. They slept about an hour and a half after Bob and I were up and about. But they are very weak. I had to feed them.”
“That’s to be expected,” said the doctor professionally. “We’ll go in and see how the fever is. I don’t suppose they’ve seen Bob?”
Betty shook her head.
“I thought the fewer people they saw the better,” she answered quietly. “Miss Hope was afraid I was doing too much and I told her a boy was here looking after the barns and the stock. That seemed to satisfy her.”
“Well, for two youngsters, I must say you show extraordinary good sense,” the doctor said. “I don’t know what these old ladies would have done if you hadn’t taken hold.”
He wanted Betty to go with him to the sick-rooms, and at his first glance pronounced Miss Hope better. Miss Charity, too, was much improved, but she struggled against the throat spray and was exhausted when the treatment was finished.
“They’ll build up, but slowly,” declared the doctor when he and Betty and Bob were again together in the kitchen. “I think it is safe to say that they’ll sleep nearly all day. Keep them warm and on a light diet – here is a better list than the one I scribbled last night – and be careful of yourself, Betty. I’m having some supplies sent out to you. I took a look at the pantry last night before you came, and the old ladies have been living on what the farm produced; if it didn’t produce what they needed, they evidently went without. I’m afraid they’re desperately poor and proud. What’s that? Grandma Watterby’s beef extract? Fine! Just what you need! Give ’em some for supper. Well, Betty, out with it – don’t ask a question with your eyes; use your tongue.”
“The fire?” stammered Betty. “Is it out? Have you heard anything?”
“Still burning,” was the reluctant answer. “About all the town spent the night up there, hampering the employees I haven’t a doubt and thinking they were helping the force. However, don’t worry, child; I honestly believe that Mr. Gordon is in no danger. He is intelligent and careful, and the company will sacrifice the whole field before they will let a man risk his life.”
Doctor Morrison was to come the next day, and some hours after he left them a rickety oil field wagon drove up and left a box of groceries. The boy driving the sleek mule was in a great hurry “to see the fire,” and he merely tumbled the box off and drove on with hardly an unnecessary word.
“Goodness, the doctor seems to expect us to stay a month!” gasped Betty, unpacking the tin cans and packages. “It’s almost as much fun as keeping a store, isn’t it, Bob? Oh, my gracious! what was that?”
A cry had sounded from Miss Hope’s bedroom.
Bob and Betty ran to the door. She was sitting up in bed, her bright, hot eyes staring at them unseeingly.
“Faith!” she cried piercingly. “Faith, my darling!”
CHAPTER XVII
SICK FANCIES
Betty turned to stare at Bob. He looked at her helplessly.
“My mother!” he whispered. “She’s calling my mother!”
Betty was the first to recover. She went quietly over to the bed.
“There, dear, lie down,” she said soothingly. “Everything is all right. It’s the fever,” she explained in an aside to Bob. “The doctor said she used to be out of her head when she had even a slight cold.”
“Faith!” cried Miss Hope again, resisting Betty’s attempts to press her back against the pillow. “I wrote and wrote,” the hoarse voice babbled on. “You and David are so cruel – you will never send us word. David!” she sat up straighter and pointed an accusing finger at Bob standing in the doorway. “David! Faith and David – ”
“You’re making her worse,” said Betty. “Go away, please, Bob. See, she’ll lie down now.”
Exhausted, Miss Hope sank back on her pillow, and suddenly the delirium left her.
“You’re very good to me, my dear,” she whispered weakly. “I think I’ll go to sleep.”
Betty watched her for a few minutes till her even breathing told that she really was asleep. Then she went in to see if Miss Charity had been disturbed. She was awake and beckoned for Betty to come nearer the bed.
“Was Faith here?” she whispered painfully. Betty had to put her ear down to her mouth to hear. “Has she come at last?”
Betty shook her head sorrowfully. She had hoped the sick woman’s voice had not reached her sister.
“Miss Hope had more fever,” she said compassionately. “She has gone to sleep now. If I bring you a little nice beef tea, don’t you think you might take a nap, too?”
The old lady was childishly pleased with the idea of something to eat again, and Betty fixed her tray daintily and toasted a cracker to go with the cup of really delicious home-made beef tea. Miss Charity drank every drop, and fifteen minutes later Betty had the satisfaction of seeing her go to sleep.
Bob was out on the back porch, whittling furiously, a sure sign that he was disturbed.
“They’re my aunts, all right,” he began, as soon as Betty appeared. “I couldn’t be quite sure, in spite of the name and the coincidences, but now I know it. Do you think I look like them, Betty?”
“You look an awful lot like Miss Hope,” said Betty. “You look like Miss Charity, too, but not nearly as much. Miss Hope has blue eyes, you see. You haven’t seen Miss Charity yet, but her eyes are black. I’m sure they are your aunts, Bob.”
“Well, if they ever needed a husky nephew they need him now,” declared Bob whimsically. “I don’t know how long they’ve been sick, but this place looks as though no one had cleaned it up in a year. The animals need currying, too.”
“They haven’t been able to hire any help, I suppose,” said Betty. “And I don’t believe you can get a hired man around here. The men are all working in the oil fields. Ki is mad at the oil investors, and that’s the only reason Will Watterby can keep him.”
“Are they both asleep?” asked Bob, whose mind skipped topics with amazing rapidity. “All right then, let’s go out to the barn. Something tells me if you look around you’ll get a basket of eggs.”
They had great fun doing the work together, and both agreed that if they never thanked the Peabodys for another thing, they could say truthfully that they were thankful for the knowledge of farm work learned on Bramble Farm. Bob knew what to feed the animals, how to take care of them, and even what to do for a severe nail cut one of the cows had suffered. Betty gathered a basket of eggs with little hunting and also found several rat holes which Bob promptly attended to by nailing tin over them.
“We can’t start in and repair the whole place,” he said cheerfully. “But we’ll do little jobs as fast as we come to them.”
Both sisters were soundly sleeping when, the chores finished, Betty and Bob came back to the house. They had their lunch, and then Bob brought the dilapidated old lawn mower around to the back porch to see if he could put it in running order. Betty sat down near him, with the doors open so that she could hear the slightest movement within the house, and worked fitfully at her tatting. She was learning to make a pretty edge, under Grandma Watterby’s instruction, but it did not progress very quickly, mainly because Betty was always going off for long rides, or playing somewhere outdoors.
“Look at that cloud of dust!” said Bob suddenly, glancing up from his tinkering. “Some one is going somewhere in a hurry. He’s stopping. Why, Betty, it’s Ed Manners!”
Manners was a Flame City youth, a lad of about eighteen, and the son of the postmaster. Bob and Betty ran down to the road to see him as he stopped his motorcycle with skillful abruptness.
“Will Watterby told me you were out here,” he called as soon as he saw Bob. “Say, two more wells caught last night, and they say it’s absolutely the biggest fire we’ve ever had. The close drilling has made the trouble. Remember how Mr. Gordon used to rave over so many derricks on an acre? Don’t you want to come with me, Bob? I’d take you, too, Betty, but it is no place for a girl.”
Ed Manners waved an inviting hand towards the side-car. Bob was eager to go – what boy would not be? – and he knew that not to go would mean that he was missing something which in all probability he would never see again.
“Go ahead, Bob,” urged Betty bravely. “I’ll be all right. Honestly I will. If you don’t get back to-night, why, Doctor Morrison will be out in the morning.”
But Bob had made up his mind. He heard clearly again the final commands of Mr. Gordon, his Uncle Dick, for whom he would do far more than this.
“Can’t go, Ed,” he said briefly and finally. “Sorry, but it isn’t to be thought of. Betty and I have a job cut out for us right here.”
The lad on the motorcycle had no time to waste in arguing. He was eager to get to the scene of excitement, and if Bob chose to throw up a chance to see a spectacular fire, why, that was his business. With a loud snort and a series of back-fires, the machine shot up the road and in less than a minute was out of sight.
“I hope, oh, I hope that Uncle Dick is all right,” worried Betty, walking back to the house. “You needn’t have stayed with me, Bob. Still, of course, I’m glad you did. I might be a little nervous at night.”
Bob thought it more than likely but all he said was that he wouldn’t think of leaving her alone with two sick women and no telephone in the house.
“As soon as my aunts are well enough to hear the sad news that I’m their long-lost nephew,” he said half in fun and half in earnest, “I intend to have a ’phone put in for them. It’s outrageous to think of two women living isolated like this.”
The afternoon passed rapidly, Bob getting his machine in running order and clipping a little square of lawn before supper time. Betty fed her patients again, and again they went to sleep. After an early supper Betty and Bob were glad to go to bed, too, and it seemed to the former that she had been asleep only a few moments when something wakened her, and she sat up, startled.
The moonlight was streaming in at her windows, silvering the stiff, haircloth furniture and bathing the red and blue roses of the Brussels carpet in a radiance that softened the glaring colors and made them even beautiful. Betty was about to lie down and try to go to sleep again when a cry came from Miss Hope.
“Faith!” she moaned. “Faith, my dear little sister!”
Betty was out of bed in a second and pattering toward the sufferer’s room. Bob, half-dressed, appeared at the door leading into the kitchen simultaneously.
“Don’t let her see you,” warned Betty. “I think that makes her worse. I wish I knew what to do when she gets these spells.”
For some time Miss Hope rambled on about “Faith,” and would not be persuaded to lie down. At last, after crying pitifully, she sank back on the pillow and the phantoms seemed to leave her poor brain. Like a child she dropped off into a deep sleep, and Bob and Betty were free to creep back to their rooms and try to compose their nerves. Miss Charity had slept peacefully through it all.
The doctor, told of Miss Hope’s ravings, listened thoughtfully, but did not seem to attach much importance to the recital. He had driven up early the following morning and brought the hopeful news that the fire was said to be under control.
“She’s always had a tendency to be flighty in any illness,” he said, speaking of Miss Hope’s disorders. “Faith was a sister to whom she was greatly attached. A pretty girl who married and went away before I came here to practise. Miss Saunders told me once that from the time of her marriage to this, not a word of her ever reached them. She completely disappeared. Of course this has preyed on the minds of both sisters, and it’s a wonder they haven’t broken down before this.”
Doctor Morrison stayed an hour or so, and praised Betty’s nursing unstintedly. He said she seemed to know what to do instinctively and had that rare tact of the born nurse which teaches her how to avoid irritating her patients.
Both Betty and Bob felt that they had no right to explore the house, though they were interested to know what might be upstairs. Betty, especially, was anxious to see the attic. She pictured trunks filled with papers that might be of help and interest to Bob, and in her experience an attic never failed to reveal a history of the family.
She did find, in the parlor where she slept, an old album, and that afternoon brought it out on the porch to show it to Bob. She hoped he might be able to recognize his mother among the tintypes and photographs. But as soon as she stepped outdoors she saw something which made her almost drop the precious old album and clutch Bob’s arm wildly.
“Look who’s coming in here!” she cried excitedly.
“Well, what do you know about that!” ejaculated the astonished Bob.
CHAPTER XVIII
STRANGE VISITORS
Walking jauntily down the path which now, thanks to Bob, was neat and trim, came the two men who had aroused Bob’s suspicions on the train, and whom he had followed into the smoking-car. They were dressed as they had been then – gray suits, gray ties, socks and hats. The older man was mopping his face with a very white handkerchief, and his shorter companion was looking eagerly up at the house.
“I beg your pardon,” said the one with gray hair – Bob remembered that he had been called Fluss – “is this the Saunders home – place, I believe the natives call it?”
He smiled at Betty, showing several gold teeth, and she shrank behind Bob and hid the album under her apron.
“Yes,” answered Bob civilly. “This is the Saunders farm.”
“We’d like to see,” the younger man spoke crisply and consulted a small leather-bound note-book, “Miss Hope Saunders or her sister. Miss Charity. Please take her our cards.”
He held out the two bits of pasteboard and Betty, looking over Bob’s shoulder, was astonished to read, not “Cal Blosser” and “Jack Fluss,” but “Irving Snead” and “George Elmer.” Each card, in the lower left-hand corner, was lettered “The West Farm Agency.”
Bob controlled whatever he was feeling, and handed back the cards very politely.
“My aunts are both very ill,” he said courteously. “They are under the doctor’s care, and it will be impossible for them to see any one for several weeks.”
“But some one must be in charge,” urged Blosser, or Irving Snead, as he seemed to prefer to be known. “Isn’t there some older person about?”
“Miss Gordon and I” – Betty thought that had a very nice sound as Bob said it – “are taking care of them. It is hard to get help of any kind because of the demand for workers at the fields and in Flame City. If we can do anything for you – ”
“You can’t!” Fluss broke in sharply. “It’s very annoying not to be able to see the Misses Saunders. We’ve come a good many miles, thinking this place might suit one of our customers. He has a delicate daughter, and he wants to get her out on a farm. This part of Oklahoma ought to be beneficial for lung trouble. I suppose the old ladies would be willing to sell? The place is much run down and not worth much, but if our client should take a fancy to it, he would overlook the poor location and the condition of the buildings. Why not let us talk to your aunts just a few minutes? You may be the cause of their losing a sale.”
“It is impossible for you to see them,” repeated Bob. “They’re in bed and have fever and great difficulty in talking at all. I’m sorry, but you can not see them to-day.”
Blosser took out his handkerchief again and mopped his streaming face. Betty, who would be kind to any one in distress, had gone in for a glass of water and brought it out to him.
“Thank you, my dear,” he murmured gratefully, gulping it down in one long swallow while Fluss shook his head impatiently in answer to Betty’s mute interrogation. “My, that tasted good,” Blosser added, handing back the glass. “I don’t suppose you know whether your aunts want to sell?” he shot at Bob. “Must be kind of hard for them to run the farm all alone.”
“Well, it was,” admitted Bob, with a misleading air of confidence. “Hereafter, of course, they’ll have me to help.”
He did not know whether it would be wise to say any more or not; but he could not resist one thrust.
“I suppose in time they will sell,” he observed carelessly. “The farm is sure to be bought up by some oil company.”
Blosser and Fluss scowled darkly and looked at Bob with closer attention.
“I didn’t know the old ladies had a nephew,” said Fluss suspiciously. “Funny they didn’t mention it when I was driving through here last spring, listing properties, eh?”
“I never knew my aunts to confide personal and private affairs to strangers,” said Bob calmly.
Blosser turned on him angrily.
“You’re fresh!” he snarled. “If you knew what was for your own good, you’d keep a civil tongue in your head. Come on – er – Elmer, we’re wasting time with this kid. We’ll come back and talk to the aunts.”
Fluss still lingered. His gray eyes appraised Bob keenly and something in their steady, disconcerting stare made Betty uneasy.
“What’s happened to the town?” demanded Fluss abruptly. “Couldn’t find even the oldest inhabitant hanging around the station. Everybody gone to a funeral?”
“There’s a big oil fire,” returned Bob. “Four or five wells have been burning a couple of days now, though they say they have it under control.”
The word “oil” roused Blosser again.
“There ain’t no oil on this place,” he announced heavily. “I’ve seen a lot of money sunk in dry wells, and what I don’t know about the oil country ain’t worth mentioning. Isn’t that so, George? Traveling round to list farms as I do, I just naturally make a study of the sections. If ever I saw a poor risk, it’s this place; there ain’t an inch of oil sand on it.”
Betty’s hand on his arm telegraphed Bob not to argue.
“You may be right,” the boy replied indifferently. “We won’t quarrel over that.”
There was nothing more to be said, and the two men turned away, Blosser putting the cards down on the step with the curt wish that “You’d hand those to your aunts and tell ’em we’ll drop in again in a couple of days.”
“Oh, I’m so glad they’ve gone!” Betty watched the retreating backs till they disappeared around a bend in the road. “Did you see how the older man stared at you, Bob? Do you suppose he remembers seeing you on the train?”
“Certainly not!” Bob openly scoffed at the suggestion. “They were stumped because they couldn’t see my aunts, that’s all. I only hope they forget to come around here until I’ve had a chance to warn my relatives – get that, Betty? My relatives sounds pretty good, doesn’t it? – against their crooked ways. If they don’t believe there is oil on this farm, I’ll eat my hat. No client with a delicate daughter could explain their eagerness. I’ll bet they’ve thoroughly prospected the fields before they even approached the house.”
Betty could not share Bob’s light-heartedness. The look in the older man’s eyes as he studied Bob would persist in sticking in her mind, and she was unable to rid herself of the feeling that he would do the boy actual harm if a chance presented. What he hoped to gain by injuring Bob, Betty could not thoroughly understand, but added to her anxiety for her uncle and the responsibility she felt for the sick women, was now added a fear for Bob’s safety. She tried to tell him something of this, but he laughed at her.
“If you have a vision of me kidnapped by the cruel sharpers,” he teased her, “forget it. What were my voice and my two trusty arms and legs given me for? I can take care of myself and you, too, Betsey.”
Nevertheless, Betty’s tranquillity was sorely shaken, and though she gradually became calmer as the day wore on, she insisted on going out with Bob to do the chores at the barn that night, and extracted a promise from him that he would call her when he got up in the morning so that she might make the morning rounds with him. Luckily Miss Hope passed a quiet night, for if she had called for her lost sister again it is difficult to say what the effect might have been on Betty’s already tried nerves.
One of her anxieties was removed to some extent the next morning when Doctor Morrison came out in his car and brought her word that her uncle had telephoned the Watterbys and sent Betty a message.
“The connection was very faulty,” said the doctor, “and Will Watterby says he doesn’t believe he made your uncle understand where you and Bob were. But he made out that Mr. Gordon was safe and the fire slackening up a bit. He doesn’t expect to be able to get away under a week. Of course work is demoralized, and he’ll have his hands full.”
Both Betty and Bob were overjoyed to learn that Uncle Dick was all right, and when the doctor pronounced both patients on the road to certain recovery, they were additionally cheered. They said nothing to the physician of their visitors of the day before, because Bob was unwilling to announce that he was a nephew of the Saunders. He wished them to hear it first.
“I think Miss Hope might sit up for a few minutes this afternoon,” counseled the doctor on leaving. “Miss Charity might try that to-morrow. Of course, I’ll be out again in the morning. You two youngsters are in my mind continually.”
He drove away, and for the rest of the day Bob was left pretty much to his own devices, Betty, however, stipulating that he was to stay close to the house. She could not shake off her fear of the two men, and Bob was far too considerate to worry her deliberately when she had so much to attend to.
Miss Hope was delighted to sit up for half an hour, and now that her patients were stronger, Betty was put to it to keep them amused and contented in bed. The doctor’s orders were strict that they were not to get up for at least two more days.
Betty read aloud to them, seated in the doorway between the two rooms so that both could hear; she gave them reports of the condition of things outside; and Miss Hope said primly that she would like to meet and thank the boy who had been so kind as soon as she could be “suitably attired.” Betty was thankful that she did not ask his name, but the sisters were not at all curious. They had been so ill and were still weak, and the fact that their household and farm was apparently running smoothly was enough for them to grasp. The details did not claim their attention.
“Charity was sick first,” said Miss Hope, over her beef tea and toast. “What delicious tea this is, my dear! Yes, she was down for two days, and I took care of her and did the milking. Then I felt a cold coming on, but I crawled around for another day, doing the best I could. The night before the day you came I went out to milk and I must have fainted. When I came to I was within an inch of old Blossom’s hoofs. That scared me, and I came right into the house without finishing a chore. I think I was delirious all night, and I remember thinking that if we were both going to die, at least I’d have things as orderly as possible. So I went around and pulled down all the first floor shades. Upstairs we always keep ’em drawn. And then I don’t remember another thing till I came to and found you in the room.”
“And she didn’t come a minute too soon,” croaked Miss Charity.
