A Daily Rate (3 page)

MRS. Morris lay on her unmade bed, still in the soiled wrapper. Her expansive face was drawn in agony and she looked white and sick. She seemed surprised to see Celia, and supposed she had come to prefer a request for another towel, perhaps, or to make some complaint.

“You’ll have to ask Maggie,” she said without waiting to hear what the girl had to say. “I can’t talk now, I’m suffering so. It’s just terrible. I never was so sick in my life.”

“But I’ve come to see if I can’t help you,” explained Celia. “Maggie told me you were sick. Tell me what is the matter. Perhaps I can do something for you. I know about sickness and nursing.”

“Oh, such awful pain!” said the woman, writhing in agony, “I suppose it’s something I’ve et. Though I never et a thing, all day long, but a little piece of pie at dinner to-night and me tea. Me nerves is all used up with worrying anyway, and me stomach won’t stand anything anymore.”

Celia asked a few practical questions, and then told her she would return in a minute. She found her way in haste to the kitchen, though she had never before penetrated to that realm of darkness—and dirt. She ordered Maggie peremptorily to bring her a large quantity of very hot water as soon as she could, and send somebody for a doctor. Then she went up to her own room and hastily gathered a bottle or two from her small store of medicines and a piece of an old blanket she had brought from home. She hesitated a moment. She ought to have another flannel. The woman was too sick to find anything, and she had said she did not know where there were any old flannels. It was necessary. She must take up this cross to save that poor woman from her suffering and perhaps save her life, for she was evidently very sick indeed. She waited no longer, but quickly took out her own clean flannel petticoat. It was nothing very fine, and was somewhat old, but it was a sacrifice to think of using any of her personal clothing down there in that dirty room, and for that woman who did not seem to be scrupulously clean herself However, there was no help for it, and she hurried back as fast as she could. She gave the poor woman a little medicine which she thought might help her, and she knew could do no harm till the doctor could get there, and then plunging the cherished blanket into the hot water she wrung it as dry as she could and quickly applied it to the seat of pain, covering it with the flannel skirt. She knew there was nothing like hot applications to relieve severe pain. She saw by the look of relief that passed over the sick woman’s face that the pain had relaxed to some extent. After a moment, Mrs. Morris said:

“I don’t know as you’d a needed to send for a doctor, this might have helped me without him. I can’t bear to think of his bill. Bills’ll be the death of me yet, I’m afraid.”

But a spasm of pain stopped her speech, and Celia hastened to repeat the applications.

It was some time before the doctor arrived. The girl had to work fast and hard. It was evident when he came that he thought the patient a very sick woman. Mrs. Morris realized this, too. After the doctor was gone and Celia was left alone with her, she asked her if she supposed the doctor thought she was going to die.

“Though I ain’t got much to live for, the land knows—nor to die for either for the matter of that.”

“Oh you forget!” said Celia, reverently, aghast that one should speak in that tone of dying, “There is Jesus! Don’t you know him?”

The woman looked at her as if she had spoken the name of some heathen deity, and then turned her head wearily.

“No,” she said, “I don’t suppose I am a Christian. I never had any time. When I was a girl there was always plenty of fun, and I never thought about it, and after I got married there wasn’t time. I did tell the minister I would think about joining church the time of my daughter’s funeral, but I never did. I kind of wish I had now. One never is ready to die, I s’pose. But then living isn’t easy either, the land knows.”

A grey ashen look overspread her face. Celia wondered if perhaps she might not be dying even now. She shuddered. It seemed so terrible for anyone to die in that way. She had never been with a very sick person near to death, and she did not know the signs well enough to judge how much danger there might be of it. She felt however that she must say something. The woman must have some thread of hope, if she should be really dying. She came close to her and took her hand tenderly.

“Dear Mrs. Morris! Don’t talk that way. Dying isn’t hard, I’m sure, if you have Jesus, and he’s always near and ready, if you will only take him now. I know he helps one to die, for I can remember my own dear mother, though I was but a little girl. She had a beautiful look on her face, when she bade me good-bye, and told me she was going to be with Jesus, and that I must always be a good girl and get ready to come to her. She looked very happy about it.”

Mrs. Morris opened her eyes and gave her a searching look. Then she said in a voice halfway between a groan and a frightened shout:

“Why do you talk like that? You don’t think I am dying, do you? Tell me, quick! Did the doctor say I was going to die? Why did he go away if that was so? Send for him quick!”

Then the inexperienced young girl realized that she had made a mistake and been too much in earnest. There was danger that the woman might make herself much worse by such excitement. She must calm her. To talk to her thus would do no good. She must wait until a suitable season.

“No, Mrs. Morris,” she said, rising and speaking calmly, “he did not say so, and I do not believe you are going to die. You must not get so excited, or you will make yourself worse. Here, take your medicine now, for it is time. I did not mean you to think I thought you were dying, and I’m sorry I spoke about my mother’s death, it was very foolish of me. Please forget it now. I only wanted to tell you how Jesus was standing near ready to be a comfort to you always, whether you lived or died. But now you ought to go to sleep. Would you like me to sing to you? Is the pain a little easier? The doctor said you must lie very quiet. Can I get you anything?”

By degrees she calmed the woman again, and then sat down to watch and give her the medicine. There seemed to be no one whose business it was to relieve Celia. Maggie put her head in the door about midnight to say she was going to bed now and had left a fire, if any more hot water was needed. Celia sat there gradually taking in the fact that she was left to sit up all night with this sick woman, an utter stranger to her. It was scarcely what she would choose as a pleasant task. But she recognized it as the cross the Master had lain upon her with his own hand, and there was a sense of sweetness in performing this duty which she would not have had otherwise. It occurred to her that it was well this was Saturday night instead of some other, for she could ill afford to sit up and lose all her sleep when she had to stand at the counter all the next day. She smiled to herself in the dim light and thought this must be part of the Master’s plan to fix it so that she could do this duty and her others also. This was all he asked her to do, just what she had strength for. He gave her the daily allowance of that. But what if she should have to sit up to-morrow night? “Daily, only, he says to thee,” and “Thou mayest leave that to thy gracious Lord,” came the answering words, for now she knew the little poem by heart. She went upstairs, hastily changed her dress for a loose wrapper, and secured her Bible and one or two articles which she thought might be useful in caring for the sick woman. When she came down again Mrs. Morris seemed to be asleep, and Celia settled herself by the dim light with her Bible. She felt that she needed some help and strength. She had not read long when Mrs. Morris said in a low voice, “Is that the Bible you’ve got? Read a little piece to me.”

Celia hardly knew where to turn for the right words just now, but her Bible opened easily of itself to the twenty-third psalm and she read the words in a low, musical voice, praying the while that they might be sent of the Spirit to reach the sick woman’s heart. When she stopped reading Mrs. Morris seemed to be asleep again, and Celia settled herself in the least uncomfortable chair in the room, and began to think.

But she had not long for this occupation, for this was to be a night of action. The terrible pain which for a time had been held by some powerful opiate the doctor had given when he first came in, returned in full force, and the patient soon was writhing in mortal agony once more. Celia was roused from her thoughts. She called Maggie and sent for hot water and the doctor again, and it was not until morning was beginning to stain the sky with crimson that she sat down to breathe and realize that Mrs. Morris was still alive. It seemed almost a miracle that she was, for the doctor had said when he arrived that there was doubt whether he could save her.

Early in the morning Miss Burns came in to relieve her watch, and Celia snatched a little sleep, but she found on awaking that she was needed again. Mrs. Morris had asked for her. She went down to the breakfast table and found, what she had not supposed possible, that the breakfast was so much worse than former breakfasts, since the mistress was sick, that it was hardly possible to eat at all. It seemed that Mrs. Morris had made some difference in things, though Celia had thought the night

before that they could not very well be much worse. She had yet to find that there were many grades below even this in hoarding-houses.

The Sabbath was not spent in studying Jehoiachin. It was full, but not with attending church services. She did not stay in her cold little room. She would have been glad to have been allowed to flee to that refuge. Instead, she made her headquarters in Mrs. Morris’ room and from there she began by degrees to order things about her, for Mrs. Morris seemed to have placed all her dependence upon her. It was she who answered the questions of Maggie about this thing and that, and who kept the entire list of boarders from coming in to talk to Mrs. Morris and commiserate with her. She also cleared up the room and gave a touch of something like decent care to the sick woman and her surroundings. Once or twice the patient opened her eyes, looked around, seemed to see the subtle difference, and then closed them again. Celia could not tell whether it pleased her or whether she was indifferent. But it was not in Celia’s nature to stay in a room and not make those little changes of picking up a shoe and straightening a quilt and hanging clothing out of sight. She did it as a matter of course.

Occasionally, when she had time to do so, she wondered what aunt Hannah would think if she could see her now, and she smiled to think that this was just what she seemed to have had to do all her life,—give up to help other people. Then she thought perhaps it was the most blessed thing that could happen to her.

Occasionally there would come to her a remembrance of that letter from the lawyers, and she would wonder what it meant, and how she could possibly go to work to find out.

Sunday evening she sat with her landlady for a couple of hours. The pain seemed to be a little easier, though she had spent an intensely trying day. She seemed worried and inclined to talk. Celia tried to soothe her and persuade her to get calm for sleeping, but it was of no use.

“How can I sleep,” answered the woman impatiently, “with so many things to fret about? Here am I on me back for the land knows how long, and the doctor wanting me to go to the hospital. How can I go to the hospital? What will become of me house, and me business if I up and off that way? And then when I get well, if I ever do, what’s to become of me? Me house would be empty, and me goods sold for grocery debts and other things, and I should starve. I might as well take the chances of dying outright now as that. I know I’d die in the hospital anyway, fretting about things. That Maggie never could carry on things, even if I was only to be gone two days. She never remembers to salt anything. Those two girls from that three-cent store have been complaining about the soup today already. They say it was just like dish water. And that German fellow came and told me tonight, with me lying sick here, that he’d have to leave if things didn’t improve. He said I ought to get better help! Think of it! How am I going about to get help and me on me back not able to stir? I don’t much care if he does leave, he always ate more than all the rest of them put together. But land, if I should get well right away and keep on, I don’t see where I’m coming to. There’s bills everywhere, milk and meat and groceries and dry goods. I don’t know how I’m ever to pay ’em. It’ll be just go on and pay a little, and get deeper in debt, and pay a little of that and make more debt, till I come to the end sometime, and I s’pose it might as well be now as any time.”

Poor Celia! She had no words ready for such trouble as this. Debt had always been to her an awful thing, a great sin, never to be committed. She never realized that there were people to whom to be in debt seemed the normal way of living from day to day. She tried to think of something comforting to say, for how could a woman get well with such a weight as this on her mind? It would do no good to quote verses of Scripture about taking no thought for the morrow, nor to quote that sweet poem of hers about not bearing next week’s crosses. The poor woman would not understand. She had not so lived in the past as to know how to claim the promise of being cared for. She would scarcely understand if Celia tried to tell her that if she would but cast her care now on Jesus he would help her in some way at once. This was what she longed to say, but her experience of the night before led her to fear saying anything which might excite the poor nervous woman.

“How much money do you need to pay all your debts and set you straight again?” she asked, thinking a little opportunity to go over her troubles might quiet her.

“Oh, I don’t know,” wailed the poor woman. “If I just had a thousand dollars, I’d sell out me business and go somewhere and get out of it. Things seem to be getting worse and worse.” She began to cry feebly, and Celia was at her wits’ end. Everything she said seemed to make matters worse. Suddenly she began to sing in a low soft voice,

“Jesus, Saviour, pilot me,

Over life’s tempestuous sea.”

Her voice was sweet and pure, and the woman paused to listen while Celia sang on until she fell asleep.