Miss Dimple Suspects (3 page)

Picking her way through waist-high weeds where blackberry briars snagged her dress and scratched her legs above the tops of her shoes, Dimple wished she had stayed on the road as her mother had told her. It would take much too long to get through the thick tangle of grass, and she didn’t even want to think about snakes. Bear, who had bounded ahead, looked back at her as if to ask why she’d gotten them into such a fix. His shaggy black-and-white coat was matted with beggar lice, and it would take forever to get them all out, but that didn’t matter now.

Dimple turned and went back to the edge of the cornfield, following it to the cooler woods. It was easier to walk here, and she was sure to come out in the same place, wasn’t she? The sun had dipped lower in the sky and mosquitoes and gnats seemed to follow her every step. Dimple swatted at them with her skirt, wishing she’d thought to wear her sunbonnet. She swallowed a lump in her throat and felt it lodge like a rock in her chest. Stinging tears blurred her vision and she wiped them away impatiently.
Dimple Kilpatrick had no idea where she was!

What would her mother say if she didn’t come home with help? If Henry died, it would be all her fault! Mr. Sayre’s big vegetable garden should be just up ahead. Once when she went there with her papa, he had given her a sweet, juicy watermelon. Dimple’s mouth was dry but she took a deep breath and ran faster. Soon she would see it.

But she didn’t. Instead she came out on a hillside dotted with trees. The crop had been harvested and the peaches left on the trees had fallen to the ground, where wasps buzzed about the sour, rotting fruit. Dimple held her nose as she ran, not even taking time to be careful where she stepped. This wasn’t where she was supposed to be, but somebody had to own the orchard and somebody had to pick the peaches. It wasn’t until she reached the bottom of the hill that she saw the shiny tin roof of the Sayre’s barn and the big vegetable patch beyond it.

Dimple Kilpatrick barely remembered holding tight to Bear during the furious buggy ride home, but she did remember the July flies sawing away with their summer song as they pulled up to the house and her mother running out to meet them.

Minerva Sayre dosed Henry with a tonic made of sage with a pinch of alum and rubbed his chest with a salve of warmed lard mixed with turpentine and loose quinine, and the two women sat with him all night. By morning her brother’s fever was down and he was able to swallow a few spoons of beef tea. Dimple never knew if it was the continuous use of steam, the primitive medicine, or both that saved her brother’s life, but only she, Bear, and God Himself knew the route she had taken to find help.

*   *   *

“… seventeen … eighteen … nineteen … twenty!” In the twilight of the woods, Miss Dimple paused to listen. This was the second time she had counted and she hesitated before calling Peggy’s name because she thought she heard a rustle in the underbrush ahead. Somewhere nearby a dry twig fell as the wind picked up. “Peggy!” Dimple shouted, louder this time. “Peggy, where are you?” And from just over the low knoll ahead came the distinctive sound of a bark.

Again: sharper and more clamorous as she hurried closer—a dog—
someone’s
dog! But where had it come from? “Here, boy!” Miss Dimple answered. “It’s all right!”

But the dog wasn’t sure it was all right. It wasn’t sure at all, and it greeted her baring its teeth with a growl low in the throat. “It’s all right,” Miss Dimple said again in a soft, soothing voice. “I’m not going to hurt you.” Taking a step closer, she held out a hand and stood still, allowing the animal to sniff its approval. It was a short-haired dog, a German shepherd, she thought, with a brown-and-black coat and white throat, and it seemed to be attempting to block her way. It was getting so dark now Dimple could barely see more than a few feet ahead, but she was sure the dog was guarding something—or someone.
Don’t show alarm, Dimple! Keep your voice calm.
“Peggy?” she called. “Peggy, it’s Miss Dimple!” This time she heard a low but very human whimper. Stepping into a small clearing, Dimple could barely distinguish the tree Peggy had told her about. It looked to be an ancient white oak bent to form a benchlike seat. And nearby, there in the darkness beneath the spreading branches of a large hemlock tree, she saw a tiny huddled shape. “Peggy, are you able to walk? It’s dark now, and cold. It’s time to go home.”

This time Dimple stepped past the dog, who still hadn’t seemed to have made up its mind. “Bite me if you must,” she said in her stern, schoolroom voice, “but I’m taking care of this child.” The dog must have recognized the authority in her voice because it backed away to let her pass but made a point to stay close by.

The little girl lay curled, knees to chest. Her pigtails had come loose and the blue tam lay beside her. Miss Dimple stooped and touched the child’s face and found her burning with fever. Peggy began to shake with chills as Dimple crouched beside her and she quickly took off her coat to cover her. “Mama,” Peggy cried, and reached up her arms to be held. Was she calling for her birth mother or for the mother she called Kate? Miss Dimple only knew she had to get her out of the cold as quickly as possible.

Dimple Kilpatrick, in all her years of teaching, had held many a child, and tiny Peggy Ashcroft couldn’t have weighed a lot more than the heavy leather handbag she usually carried, but the ground was uneven and night had descended upon them. How was she going to get this sick little girl down the treacherous hillside? Dimple stood, cradling Peggy to her chest as the wind whipped about them, and tried not to think about being cold. She would probably be able to get down by herself, but there was no way she was going to leave this child alone while she went for help. She would just have to take it a few steps at a time and hope she didn’t have an accident along the way.

She had promised Virginia she would let her know when she got home and if she didn’t telephone in a certain amount of time, her friend would be sure to find out she hadn’t returned. Or perhaps others at the boardinghouse would become concerned and come looking for her when they learned she wasn’t in her room. Meanwhile, she couldn’t wait. Locking her arms around Peggy, Miss Dimple was trying to decide on the best way to begin her descent when the dog’s frenzied barking caught her attention and it became obvious the animal objected to her plans.

Dimple clenched her teeth to keep them from chattering as the dog raced back and forth between her and a spot a few feet away. Was he trying to lead her somewhere? Miss Dimple shifted her small burden; the little girl’s cheek felt scorching next to her own and she could hear a distinctive rattle in her chest. She thought again of the long-ago neighbor who had helped to save her little brother.
Minerva, where are you when I need you?

Again, the German shepherd demanded her attention, urging her farther up the hill. Miss Dimple sighed. “Maybe you know something I don’t know,” she said, stumbling along behind him. Using her flashlight, she walked cautiously, the pale beam probing the way a few feet at a time. She didn’t know anything about this dog except that it was protective of Peggy, but from her own early experiences with Bear, Dimple was aware that sometimes animals had keener instincts than humans, and several minutes later she realized she had made the right decision. At the top of the next hill, a welcoming yellow light beckoned to them from the window of a cottage only a few yards away.

C
HAPTER
T
HREE

The door of the house opened and Miss Dimple squinted through dirt-streaked glasses to see the silhouette of a woman framed in the light. “What do you have there, Max? Come here, boy!”

The dog bounded across the clearing and up the steps to the wide porch to jump with abandon about the woman’s feet. “What is it, Max? Who’s out there?”

Dimple Kilpatrick, her arms aching from carrying Peggy, sank to her knees at the edge of the clearing. She tried to call out but she was so winded and cold from the climb she could scarcely make a sound. What if this woman had a gun? It wasn’t unusual for people who lived in the country to keep one on hand to protect themselves and their property. She bent her body over that of the child as the dog Max raced toward them, barking. At the same time another person joined the woman on the porch.

“Please, we need help!” Miss Dimple gasped, hoping they could hear her.

“I believe there’s someone out there.” Another woman spoke, sounding younger than the first. “You stay here, Miss Mae Martha. I’ll see what’s going on.”

“Wait! Take the lantern, Suzy, and be careful, you hear?”

The flashlight! What had she done with the flashlight?
She must’ve dropped it when she fell to her knees. Clutching Peggy closer, Dimple glanced over her shoulder to see a glimmer of light in the leaves behind her. If she could turn it on her face, it should let these people know she was in no shape to harm them, but it was too far out of reach. Max, obviously proud of himself for bringing home such a prize, remained close by, demanding attention with an occasional bark, and Dimple was glad to have him there. As long as the dog stayed between them and the two on the porch, they would be less likely to shoot them. She closed her eyes against the glare of the lantern as footsteps approached. “Please,” Miss Dimple repeated. “The child is sick.”

“Oh!” A young woman knelt beside them. “We have to get you inside.” Setting aside the lantern, she called to the older woman, who had started down the steps. “We need blankets! Quickly!” She held out her arms. “Here, let me have the child. Are you able to walk?”

“I think so.” Miss Dimple stumbled to her feet. She thought she still had feet, although she couldn’t feel them anymore. Numbly she followed the woman who carried Peggy. The other one had already disappeared inside.

My goodness! How many stairs were there? What in the world was wrong with her? She had never been this out of shape! Grasping the railing, Miss Dimple paused a few steps from the top. Each breath brought in razor-sharp air.

Suddenly a soft blanket enveloped her and an arm encircled her waist. “Only a few more steps,” someone said. “Let’s get you inside by a warm fire.”

Warm fire.
Surely those were the most beautiful words she had ever heard. Miss Dimple hoped they would allow her to keep the blanket around her for at least a little while longer. The room was larger than she’d expected, rectangular with a stone fireplace at one end, and it reminded her a bit of the rustic log cabin that served as their town’s library where her friend Virginia worked. The older woman led her over heart of pine floors and a colorful braided rug to a comfortable chair by the fire and, kneeling, began to remove Dimple’s shoes.

Dimple Kilpatrick hadn’t had anyone take off her shoes since she was … well … it had been so long she couldn’t even remember. “Please,” she began, “you don’t have—”

“Nonsense! You don’t want frostbite, do you?” Miss Dimple realized for the first time that the woman looking up at her was probably even older than she was. She was tall but seemed rather frail and wore her gray hair pulled into a bun at the back. Her face, however, was surprisingly unlined and her cheeks, pink from the cold.

She winced in spite of herself when her icy feet and hands met the warmth of the fire, and the woman named Mae Martha gave her shoulder a comforting pat. “You’ll feel better after you soak your feet in warm water. I’ll put on the kettle.”

Miss Dimple started to rise. “Peggy?”

“She’s right here. I’m afraid she’s very sick.” Miss Dimple turned to find the younger woman on the settee behind her, stripping off the little girl’s clothing. “Her fever’s high and we have to get it down or she could go into convulsions.” Peggy shivered as the woman laid her gently on the couch and covered her with a light blanket.

“What can I do to help?” Dimple asked.

“Just watch her while I heat some water in the tank. We’ll start her off in warm water and gradually add cool. It would be too much of a shock to immerse her in cold right away.”

The young woman, whose name Dimple assumed was Suzy, certainly seemed to know what she was doing. She was small and lovely with straight black hair worn in a short bob styled just below her ears and there was no doubt she was of Asian descent.

While Dimple obediently soaked her feet in a pan of warm water, she heard her moving about the next room, which she assumed was a bedroom, and she soon emerged carrying a large tin tub much like the kind Dimple had bathed in as a child. “We have a tub in the bathroom, but it might be more comfortable here by the fire,” she said.

Sitting with Peggy while the water heated, Miss Dimple sang to her the songs her mother had sung so many years before: a Stephen Foster favorite, “Oh! Susanna,” and the one she always loved best, “The Riddle Song” her mother claimed came from the Kentucky mountains, although she learned later it probably originated in fifteenth-century England.

Peggy’s face was flushed and her eyes puffy with fever. Dimple touched the child’s neck and found her glands hard and swollen. Could Peggy have scarlet fever? Usually the rash began on the abdomen, and she folded back the blanket to look but, although Peggy’s skin was hot and dry, she didn’t see redness there. Yet.

Dimple looked up to see Suzy standing over her. “It looks like tonsillitis,” Suzy said. “With your help, I’d like to get a better look at her throat.”

Using a flashlight and the flat handle of a spoon as a tongue depressor, Suzy managed to get a brief look at the child’s throat while Dimple held the light. Peggy gagged and cried and Miss Dimple wished more than ever they could pick up the telephone and call Ben Morrison, the local doctor. She had noticed him earlier with the group who went to search the area around Etowah Pond.

“I couldn’t get a good look,” Suzy said, “but there’s a lot of inflammation in there. Has she had trouble with her tonsils before?”

Of course Miss Dimple couldn’t give her a definite answer, but she did remember Peggy’s being absent from school several days the month before.

While Suzy filled the tin tub with warm water, Dimple explained to the two women how she and Peggy happened to follow Max into their dooryard. “We were most fortunate to find you,” she added, “as I really don’t know if I would’ve been able to make it all the way back carrying Peggy. I just wish we could get in touch with her parents, as I know they must be frantic.”