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Mitch Miller, a novel by Edgar Lee Masters |
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Chapter 11 |
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_ CHAPTER XI Sunday School bothered me terribly, for a lot of reasons. I had to dress up, for one thing, and in the summer time ma made me wear linen suits, which was starched stiff by Delia, our girl. They had sharp edges which scratched. And my hat was too small, and my shoes hurt. And the inside of the church smelt like stale coffee grounds, and the teacher looked hungry and kept parting her lips with a sound as if she was gettin' ready to eat, or wanted to, and she trickled inside like the sound of water or somethin'. Besides, there was no end to the Bible stories and the golden texts. Mitch and the Miller girls went just as if it was the thing to do, and they didn't seem to mind it. It was a part of their life. But it was a little different with Mitch after all, for sometimes he didn't go. He went mostly, but he stayed away if he wanted to read, and his pa let him alone. Mr. Miller was the best man you ever saw, and everybody loved him. It was this way with us children, ma made us go and pa said nothin' about it unless she asked him to make us go, and then he'd say "go on now." But he didn't go himself, or much to church either. I never understood him, he was kind of a mystery. [Illustration: Sunday school] Well, on a Sunday in July me and Myrtle was dressed to go and waitin' for ma to dress Little Billie. It was awful hot and looked like rain, and my clothes scratched, my shoes hurt; but Myrtle was all quiet and anxious to go. Little Billie was frettin', like he allus did. He didn't want to go; and ma was just buttonin' his dress, and had the bowl near to comb his hair out of. And he kept frettin' and sayin' he didn't want to go. By and by ma shook him and said: "You never want to go. I never see such heathen children. None of you want to go." "I do," says Myrtle. "Yes," says ma, "you do. You're good. But Billie and Skeet make this same trouble every Sunday." Then Little Billie began to cry worse, and said his throat hurt him, and ma said, "Let me see." So she looked, and his throat had white splotches, and she said, "Land of the livin'," and began to undress him. His head was hot, too. So she put Myrtle and me out of the room and told us to go and play, and we needn't go to Sunday School. I changed back to my old clothes and went out under the oak tree. Pretty soon the doctor came--Doctor Holland. He drank a lot, but was the smartest doctor in town, just the same. And he and pa quarreled sometimes, but they were friends; for pa said Doc Holland meant no harm, even when he threatened to kill, which he did lots of times, even my pa. It turned out that Little Billie had the diphtheria and the next day he was as sick as a child could be, and live. They did everything for him, even got a kind of a lamp to blow carbolic acid in his throat; but he got no better. And I never saw my pa so worked up; it showed us what child he loved the most. He was about frantic and so was ma, and neither of 'em slept at all, it seemed. Of course while Little Billie was sick, we dropped the diggin' out at Salem--I was helpin' around the house. And Mitch said he had no heart for it. He came onct to see Little Billie and just looked at him and began to cry and went away. Little Billie was unconscious and didn't know Mitch. And grandma came in and helped. She wanted to give Little Billie some tea she could make from some weeds she'd heard about--but the doctor said it wouldn't do any good. So she just helped and let ma and the doctor run it; and the house just smelt of carbolic acid from that spray-lamp, and Little Billie gettin' worse every day. Grandpa came in onct, and went in and looked at him, and took his hand, and then just walked out of the room, and stood out in the yard a bit, and bent down and picked some leaves and began to pull 'em apart. I went out and said: "Is he better, grandpa?" But he didn't answer for quite a spell. Then he said--"The little feller's gone" and walked away. So one night when he'd been sick about two weeks, it was about eight o'clock, and all of a sudden Little Billie's eyes opened big. There had been a lot of runnin' around that day; pa was cryin' and the doctor was there all day. As I said, Little Billie opened his eyes big, and ma was settin' right by the bed and pa was standin' there, and Myrtle and me was standin' at the door lookin' in, for they wouldn't let us in the room. Then all of a sudden Little Billie said, "Sing somethin', ma," and she began to sing "Flee as a Bird to its Mountain," without her voice breakin' or anything; but she'd only sang a little when she broke into a great cry and pa cried, for Little Billie had died--just in a second, it seemed. So Myrtle and me ran out-doors and began to cry, and I got down in the grass and rolled and cried. So I was lyin' there, lookin' up at the stars, quiet for a bit, and pretty soon my pa called me, and said, "Come on with me." So we started down town together to get the undertaker. And just as we got to Harris' barn, there were clouds way up that looked like gates with the moon shining between 'em, and I said to pa, "Is that where Little Billie went through into heaven?" "Yep," said pa, just cold like, hard and cold as if there warn't a thing to it, and he was half mad at me for askin' such a question; then he went on: "Some day you'll understand--but life is just a trouble and tangle. I've been messed up all my life; always getting ready to do something, never really getting anything done. The Civil War has made a lot of trouble--trouble and enemies for me, because I didn't believe in it. And I've had to fight my way through, and work like a slave and worry about money matters, and I've never found my treasure any more than you boys have, or if I ever did, something took it away, like you lost Nancy Allen's money. And now Little Billie is dead, and I don't care what happens next." Pa scared me with his talk; and when we got to the undertaker's, he rattled the door, and old Moore came out, and pa said, "My little boy's dead, come up," in a tired voice, or kind of hard, or somethin'. Then there was the funeral. All the Miller children came and Zueline and her mother, and lots of grown men who knew my father or loved Little Billie for his own sake; and grandpa and grandma and Uncle Henry, and John Armstrong drove clear in from his farm--only Mitch didn't come. And I wasn't there, either, for now I had the diphtheria, too. Only they told me about it; how Mr. Miller spoke so beautiful, how the tears streamed down his face, as he talked, and how all the children cried. And this was two days after Little Billie died, and I was out of my head and havin' awful dreams. At first when I took sick, I expected to die, of course, and I thought about all my life, until I got cloudy and began to fly and talk wild. I thought about all I was goin' to miss, never to see Mitch again, not to see any more Christmases; but somehow, I didn't regret anything much I had done and wasn't exactly afraid. I wasn't sorry about not likin' Sunday School or anything--only it just seemed that I had never done anything, or learned anything. We hadn't found the treasure--I had never had a real friend but Mitch; I never loved a girl. I just seemed to myself a shadow that had moved around seein' things, but not being seen, and always alone and lonely, havin' my best times flyin' kites or when I wasn't with Mitch. I didn't seem real to myself, and it got worse and worse, until I got delirious and became a dozen boys, doin' every sort of thing. And first thing I knew, my ma was feedin' me out of a spoon. I was so weak I couldn't lift a hand. But I had come to and was on the mend. It all seemed strange to wake up and find Little Billie gone and remember back. Ma looked worn out and wouldn't answer questions about Mitch or anything. I had been sick more'n two weeks, and all but died. By and by I began to mend, and then I could sit up, and one day Mitch came to see me. It was the first day I was dressed, and had begun to walk a little. _ |
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