Edwin Balmer

“ Only a rabbit leaped away, its blue shadow more distinct than its white winter coat in the sunlight under the trees. But unmistakable marks in the white surface upon the hill fifty yards from the house told that, early as it was, some one had passed.
Elizabeth drew down the sash, and followed Dicky into his playroom, where old Oliver already had the logs blazing in the fireplace. ”

“ Elizabeth shuddered when she learned of how it left the children; but she believed that Dicky, at least, must be safe—until, suddenly, one morning, she bent over his bed and knew that the sickness had come upon her child.
She sent Oliver galloping to Rushton with a telegram for the doctor from the nearest town, though she knew the doctor could do almost nothing. Yet when the physician came and admitted his helplessness, she clutched him wildly. “Nothing?” she cried. “Can no one in all the world do anything?” ”

“ Elizabeth had explained how some of these people who loved his father still came to the house. This morning, in case Dicky might see signs of a stranger which she had seen now for the third or fourth time, she told her boy how a few of his father’s friends often came to the valley and were content just to revisit the forest, without coming to the house. But this explanation did not satisfy herself. Immediately after breakfast, she set out to follow the foot-prints in the snow to see where they led. ”

“ I can tell you only that they say in the city he has at last proved his serum for which—”
“He has been slaughtering little dumb creatures!”
“But now he is saving children—hundreds of children—sick like Dicky here. He is saving them all—or almost all—to whom he can get in time.”
“It can’t be so!” Elizabeth cried. “My husband said God never meant for good to come from such things as Thorpe has done! God—our God who gives us all life—could not let good come from such suffering of his little dumb creatures. My baby shall get well. Yes! And he will walk and run again, too! He will!” ”

“ Inside the tree, deer mice had laid by their store of beechnuts, each kernel carefully shelled. A red squirrel had discovered the store-chamber. Halfway up the trunk he found a hole leading to it and was busy gnawing the entrance large enough to admit him. But at the bottom of the tree, the mice had another hole and through this, after their first panic, they were scurrying to remove their supply, kernel by kernel, and to take it down through a new tunnel under the snow before the squirrel could seize their store.
“What were you going to do?” Elizabeth asked. ”

“ On chance that it might be Thorpe, she ran to meet him. Then she saw that it was only her new friend.
“Stop!” she cried to him. “You must go back! You must go back to Rushton and telegraph Thorpe for me—do you hear? I have sent for him; but he may not come for me! So you must telegraph to him—to your friends; to anyone!”
“Thorpe!” the man cried back. ”

“ She pressed both her hands over the magazine in her doubt. Her slender, firm little fingers showed pale and transparent in the lamp’s yellow glow. His eyes, watching her hands, suddenly ceased to await merely their action; he gazed at her hands and suddenly, with a shudder, hid his own behind him.
“What is it?” she cried.
“Your hands have never hurt a living thing!” ”

“ Elizabeth replied.
“Thank you!” he said. “Thank you!” He repeated it with such strange earnestness that Elizabeth found herself staring at him. He bowed to her, quietly, and moved off.
Elizabeth returned to her house, wondering—wondering not only at the man but at herself. She had never seen him before; they had exchanged only a few words. Yet for the first time since, as a girl, she had met her husband, she was comparing another man’s face with his.
II
The publishers of her husband’s books were preparing a new edition which required additional photographs to illustrate it. ”

“ She returned to the window and as she looked out, her eyes met the lower branch of the tree upon which Dicky used to climb and from which his swing now hung, motionless. Her little boy had been so active and quick and strong, climbing upon that low limb and tossing high and free in the swing. But suddenly now she saw him a cripple in a chair under that tree. She sprang up, and ran down for Oliver and sent him riding again to Rushton to telegraph. Then, on her knees beside the bed, she waited.
V
Late in the afternoon, a horseman appeared far down the valley. ”