CHAPTER III THE DOCTOR DISPOSES

The Bray girls scarcely slept a wink that night. Not alone were they excited by the incidents of the evening, and the sudden illness of their father; but the possibilities arising out of Aunt Jane Hammond’s suggestion fired the imagination of both Lyddy and ’Phemie.

These sisters were eminently practical girls, and they came of practical stock–as note the old-fashioned names which their unromantic parents had put upon them in their helpless infancy.

Yet there is a dignity to “Lydia” and a beauty to “Euphemia” which the thoughtless may not at once appreciate.

Practical as they were, the thought of going to the old farmhouse to live–if their father could be moved to it at once–added a zest to their present situation which almost made their misfortune seem a blessing.

Their furniture was spoiled, as Aunt Jane had said. And father was sick–a self-evident fact. This sudden ill turn which Mr. Bray had suffered worried both of his daughters more than any other trouble–indeed, more than all the others in combination.

Their home was ruined–but, somehow, they would manage to find a shelter. ’Phemie would have no more work in her present position after this week, and Lyddy had secured no work at all; but fortune must smile upon their efforts and bring them work in time.

These obstacles seemed small indeed beside the awful thought of their father’s illness. How very, very weak and ill he had looked when he was carried out of the flat on that stretcher! The girls clung together in their bed in the lodging house, and whispered about it, far into the night.

“Suppose he never comes out of that hospital?” suggested ’Phemie, in a trembling voice.

“Oh, ’Phemie! don’t!” begged her sister. “He can’t be so ill as all that. It’s just a breakdown, as that doctor said. He has overworked. He–he mustn’t ever go back to that hat shop again.”

“I know,” breathed ’Phemie; “but what will he do?”

“It isn’t up to him to do anything–it’s up to us,” declared Lyddy, with some measure of her confidence returning. “Why, look at us! Two big, healthy girls, with four capable hands and the average amount of brains.

“I know, as city workers, we are arrant failures,” she continued, in a whisper, for their room was right next to Aunt Jane’s, and the partition was thin.

“Do you suppose we could do better in the country?” asked ’Phemie, slowly.

“And if I am not mistaken the house is full of old, fine furniture,” observed Lyddy.

“Well!” sighed the younger sister, “we’d be sheltered, anyway. But how about eating? Lyddy! I have such an appetite.”

“She says we can have her share of the crops if we will pay the taxes and make the necessary repairs.”

“Crops! what do you suppose is growing in those fields at this time of the year?”

“Nothing much. But if we could get out there early we might have a garden and see to it that Mr. Pritchett planted a proper crop. And we could have chickens–I’d love that,” said Lyddy.

“Oh, goodness, gracious me! Wouldn’t we all love it–father, too? But how can we even get out there, much more live till vegetables and chickens are ripe, on nothing a week?”

“That–is–what–I–don’t–see–yet,” admitted Lyddy, slowly.

“It’s very kind of Aunt Jane,” complained ’Phemie. “But it’s just like opening the door of Heaven to a person who has no wings! We can’t even reach Hillcrest.”

“You and I could,” said her sister, vigorously.

“How, please?”

“We could walk.”

“Why, Lyd! It’s fifty miles if it’s a step!”

“It’s nearer seventy. Takes two hours on the train to the nearest station; and then you ride up the mountain a long, long way. But we could walk it.”

“And be tramps–regular tramps,” cried ’Phemie.

“Well, I’d rather be a tramp than a pauper,” declared the older sister, vigorously.

“But poor father!”

“That’s just it,” agreed Lydia. “Of course, we can do nothing of the kind. We cannot leave him while he is sick, nor can we take him out there to Hillcrest if he gets on his feet again—”

“Oh, Lyddy! don’t talk that way. He is going to be all right after a few days’ rest.”

“I do not think he will ever be well if he goes back to work in that hat factory. If we could only get him to Hillcrest.”

“And there we’d all starve to death in a hurry,” grumbled ’Phemie, punching the hard, little boarding-house pillow. “Oh, dear! what’s the use of talking? There is no way out!”

“There’s always a way out–if we think hard enough,” returned her sister.

“Wish you’d promulgate one,” sniffed ’Phemie.

“I am going to think–and you do the same.”

“I’m going to—”

“Snore!” finished ’Phemie. That ended the discussion for the time being. But Lydia lay awake and racked her tired brain for hours.

The pale light of the raw March morning streaked the window-pane when Lydia was awakened by her sister hurrying into her clothes for the day’s work at the millinery store. There would be but two days more for her there.

And then?

It was a serious problem. Lydia had perhaps ten dollars in her reserve fund. Father might not be paid for his full week if he did not go back to the shop. His firm was not generous, despite the fact that Mr. Bray had worked so long for them. A man past forty, who is frequently sick a day or two at a time, soon wears out the patience of employers, especially when there is young blood in the firm.

’Phemie would get her week’s pay Saturday night. Altogether, Lyddy might find thirty dollars in her hand with which to face the future for all three of them!

What could she get for their soaked furniture? These thoughts were with her while she was dressing.

’Phemie had hurried away after making her sister promise to telephone as to her father’s condition the minute they allowed Lyddy to see him at the hospital. Aunt Jane was a luxurious lie-abed, and had ordered tea and toast for nine o’clock. Her oldest niece put on her shabby hat and coat and went out to the nearest lunch-room, where coffee and rolls were her breakfast.

Then she walked down to Trimble Avenue and approached the huge, double-decker where they had lived. Salvage men were already carrying away the charred fragments of the furniture from the top floor. Lyddy hoped that, unlike herself, the Smiths and the others up there had been insured against fire.

She plodded wearily up the four flights and unlocked one of the flat doors and entered. Two of the salvage men followed her in and removed the tarpaulins–which had been worse than useless.

“No harm done but a little water, Miss,” said one of them, consolingly. “But you talk up to the adjuster and he’ll make it all right.”

They all thought, of course, that the Brays’ furniture was insured. Lyddy closed the door and looked over the wrecked flat.

The parlor furniture coverings were all stained, and the carpet’s colors had “run” fearfully. Many of their little keepsakes and “gim-cracks” had been broken when the tarpaulins were spread.

The bedrooms were in better shape, although the bedding was somewhat wet. But the kitchen was ruined.

“Of course,” thought Lyddy, “there wasn’t much to ruin. Everything was cheap enough. But what a mess to clean up!”

She looked out of the window across the air-shaft. There was the boy!

He nodded and beckoned to her. He had his own window open. Lydia considered that she had no business to talk with this young man; yet he had played the “friend in need” the evening before.

“How’s your father?” he called, the moment she opened her window.

“I do not know yet. They told me not to come to the hospital until nine-thirty.”

“I guess you’re in a mess over there–eh?” he said, with his most boyish smile.

But Lyddy was not for idle converse. She nodded, thanked him for his kindness the evening before, and firmly shut the window. She thought she knew how to keep that young man in his place.

But she hadn’t the heart to do anything toward tidying up the flat now. And how she wished she might not have to do it!

“If we could only take our clothing and the bedding and little things, and walk out,” she murmured, standing in the middle of the little parlor.

To try to “pick up the pieces” here was going to be dreadfully hard.

“I wish some fairy would come along and transport us all to Hillcrest Farm in the twinkling of an eye,” said Lyddy to herself. “I–I’d rather starve out there than live as we have for the past three months here.”

She went to the door of the flat just as somebody tapped gently on the panel. A poorly dressed Jewish man stood hesitating on the threshold.

“I’m sorry,” said Lyddy, hastily; “but we had trouble here last night–a fire. I can’t cook anything, and really haven’t a thing to give—”

Her mother had boasted that she had never turned away a beggar hungry from her door, and the oldest Bray girl always tried to feed the deserving. The man shook his head eagerly.

“You ain’t de idee got, lady,” he said. “I know dere vas a fire. I foller de fires, lady.”

“You follow the fires?” returned Lyddy, in wonder.

“Yes, lady. Don’dt you vant to sell de house-holdt furnishings? I pay de highest mar-r-ket brice for ’em. Yes, lady–I pay cash.”

“Why–why—”

“You vas nodt insured–yes?”

“No,” admitted Lyddy.

“Den I bay you cash for de goots undt you go undt puy new–ain’dt idt?”

But Lyddy wasn’t thinking of buying new furniture–not at all. She opened the door wider.

“Come in and look,” she invited. “What will you pay?”

“Clodings, too?” he asked, shrewdly.

“No, no! We will keep the clothing, bedding and kitchenware, and the like. Just the furniture.”

The man went through the flat quickly, but his bright, beady eyes missed nothing. Finally he said:

“I gif you fifteen tollar, lady.”

“Oh, no! that is too little,” gasped Lyddy.

She had begun to figure mentally what it would cost to replace even the poor little things they had. And yet, if she could get any fair price for the goods she was almost tempted to sell out.

“Lady! believe me, I make a goot offer,” declared the man. “But I must make it a profit–no?”

“I couldn’t sell for so little.”

“How much you vant, den?” he asked shrewdly.

“Oh! a great deal more than that. Ten dollars more, at least.”

“Twenty-fife tollars!” he cried, wringing his hands. “Belief me, lady, I shouldt be shtuck!”

His use of English would have amused Lyddy at another time; but the girl’s mind was set upon something more important. If she only could get enough money together to carry them all to Hillcrest Farm–and to keep them going for a while!

“Fifteen dollars would not do me much good, I am afraid,” the girl said.

“Oh, lady! you could buy a whole new house-furnishings mit so much money down–undt pay for de rest on de installment.”

“No,” replied Lyddy, firmly. “I want to get away from here altogether. I want to get out into the country. My father is sick; we had to send him to the hospital last night.”

The second-hand man shook his head. “You vas a kindt-hearted lady,” he said, with less of his professional whine. “I gif you twenty.”

And above that sum Lyddy could not move him. But she would not decide then and there. She felt that she must see her father, and consult with ’Phemie, and possibly talk to Aunt Jane, too.

“You come here to-morrow morning and I’ll tell you,” she said, finally.

She locked the flat again and followed the man down the long flights to the street. It was not far to the hospital and Lyddy did not arrive there much before the visitors’ hour.

The house physician called her into his office before she went up to the ward in which her father had been placed. Already she was assured that he was comfortable, so the keenness of her anxiety was allayed.

“What are your circumstances, Miss Bray?” demanded the medical head of the hospital, bluntly. “I mean your financial circumstances?”

“We–we are poor, sir. And we were burned out last night, and have no insurance. I do not know what we really shall do–yet.”

“You are the house-mother–eh?” he demanded.

“I am the oldest. There are only Euphemia and me, beside poor papa—”

“Well, it’s regarding your father I must speak. He’s in a bad way. We can do him little good here, save that he will rest and have nourishing food. But if he goes back to work again—”

“I know it’s bad for him!” cried Lyddy, with clasped hands. “But what can we do? He will crawl out to the shop as long as they will let him come—”

“He’ll not crawl out for a couple of weeks–I’ll see to that,” said the doctor, grimly. “He’ll stay here. But beyond that time I cannot promise. Our public wards are very crowded, and of course, you have no relatives, nor friends, able to furnish a private room—”

“Oh, no, sir!” gasped Lyddy.

“Nor is that the best for him. He ought to be out of the city altogether–country air and food–mountain air especially—”

“Hillcrest!” exclaimed Lyddy, aloud.

“What’s that?” the doctor snapped at her, quickly.

She told him about the farm–where it was, and all.

“That’s a good place for him,” replied the physician, coolly. “It’s three or four hundred feet higher above sea-level than the city. It will do him more good to live in that air than a ton of medicine. And he can go in two weeks, or so. Good-morning, Miss Bray,” and the busy doctor hurried away to his multitude of duties, having disposed of Mr. Bray’s case on the instant.