Donald Henderson Clarke - Lady Ann (Donald Henderson Clarke) (Literary Thoughts Edition)

Naomi and Ann arose at six o’clock in the morning on August eighth, 1902, when Ann was eleven years old. They were going on an all-day picnic in the surrey, with Aunt Emma Mabie and Cousin Helen Mabie, two years older than Ann. Naomi said to Ann:

“Don’t you want to sleep a little longer?”

“No,” Ann replied. “I want to help make the sandwiches.”

Ann and Naomi were dressing in Naomi’s room when Naomi sat down suddenly on the side of the bed and pressed her hand to her side. She closed her eyes, and shut her lips tightly together. Ann asked:

“What’s the matter, Mama?”

Naomi made an attempt to smile and said:

“Nothing. I’ll be all right in a minute.”

Ann, frightened, put her cheek against her mother’s cheek, and said:

“Where does it hurt, Mama?”

Naomi petted her daughter’s hand, and said:

“Mama’s precious. I’ll be all right in a minute.”

Ten minutes later Naomi and Ann were making sandwiches in the big, bright kitchen.

“I like to make my own sandwiches because I like them dainty,” Naomi said to Ann as she spread deviled ham on a thin slice of white bread.

“I like chicken sandwiches,” Ann asserted.

“There’ll be plenty of all kinds,” Naomi said.

Aunt Emma Mabie was tall, slim and dark, with black hair, dark brown eyes, a wide humorous mouth and a firm chin on which grew a mole from which closely clipped hairs sprouted. Her daughter, Helen, was a blue-eyed blonde, inclined to be plump. Helen’s knees interfered when she walked, and she wore a contraption of gold wire intended to correct buck teeth in the front of her mouth.

Nellie dragged the four of them in the surrey over country roads to Hall’s Corner, a spot on the Back Road where an expanse of rolling, green grass ran down to Borden’s Brook, flowing through willows and white birches, through miniature pool and rapid, to the river.

Ann and Helen helped carry the lunch baskets and bottles of milk and ginger ale down to the brook. Then they took off shoes and stockings and went in wading. Aunt Emma said:

“I think I’ll wet my feet too. Come on, Naomi.”

Emma and Naomi held up their skirts and petticoats and moved white legs calf-deep in the clear water. Emma said:

“You really have beautiful legs, Naomi.”

That was the first time Ann ever had thought about the possibility of legs being ornamental as well as useful, and she looked with sharpened eyes at the four pair of legs. She decided hers and her mother’s were the prettiest, but that her mother’s were prettier than hers. This was a scene that remained stamped in her memory.

They had lunch in the shade of some white birches. A Darning Needle flew near them, and Helen screamed. Emma said:

“Don’t be silly, darling.”

“If they get in your hair they snarl it all up,” Helen said.

“Pouf!” Emma said, selecting another sandwich. “Don’t believe all the fairy tales you hear. Those bugs are perfectly harmless.”

Emma looked over at Naomi, and added:

“What’s the matter, Naomi? You aren’t eating.”

“I’m just not hungry,” Naomi said, smiling.

Ann piped up and said:

“Mama had a pain this morning but she wouldn’t admit it.”

Emma grunted, and said:

“It’s just like her, and the rest of her tribe. They’d die before they’d peep. What’s the matter, Naomi?”

Naomi shook her head:

“Really, I am all right. Just leave me alone.”

Emma looked at her keenly, and arose to her feet, stuffing the last of a chicken sandwich into her mouth.

“You aren’t all right, Naomi,” Emma asserted. “You look mighty peeked. Where does it hurt?”

“She was holding on to her stomach,” Ann said. “Weren’t you, Mama?”

Emma sniffed again, and said:

“Well, we’re going right home, and your mother is going to see the doctor as soon as we get there. The very idea!”

Naomi arose and shook out her skirts and said:

“I don’t see what you are making all this fuss about, Emma. There is no need to spoil your and the children’s day. I’m perfectly all right.”

Emma was packing. She said, without looking around:

“If I didn’t know you, I’d believe you, Naomi. But if you look pale and can’t eat it’s the same to me as if the ordinary human was throwing a fit and screaming for help.”

Ann stared at her mother with wide eyes, in which tears were not far from the surface. Naomi put her arm around Ann and petted her:

“Don’t worry, darling,” Naomi said. “I’m perfectly all right.”

Ann’s lips trembled and she said:

“I don’t want you to be sick.”

Naomi smiled and replied:

“I won’t be. Give me a kiss.”

Dr. Benham took a quick look at Naomi and said to Elihu:

“Appendicitis. She’ll have to be operated right away.”

He looked at Naomi and asked:

“How long have you had these pains?”

“For two or three weeks,” she confessed.

Dr. Benham shrugged and turned to Elihu.

“She’d never’ve said anything on her own hook,” he asserted.

Elihu looked dumbly at Dr. Benham, his eyes asking questions. The doctor petted his back, and said:

“Now, there’s nothing to worry about, Elihu. People are getting operated every day.”

“I’ll be perfectly all right, Elihu,” Naomi said.

Elihu stooped to lift her up to carry her to the carriage. She said:

“For goodness sake, I can walk.”

“Let him carry you, Naomi,” Dr. Benham said. “Humor him.”

He lifted her as easily as if she had been a baby, and she snuggled on his big chest for a moment. She whispered:

“You’re so strong, Elihu.”

He blinked his eyes rapidly once or twice and cleared his throat. He lifted her into the surrey and drove off with her to the Cooley Memorial Hospital. After the operation, Dr. Benham said to Elihu:

“The appendix was ruptured. It’s a bad case, but she has a good chance.”

Elihu went to see her, and she smiled up at him from the pillow no whiter than her cheeks. He took her hand, which was dry and hot, and said:

“How are you, little girl?”

“I’m perfectly all right,” she said, still smiling.

Miss Dolly, who was day nurse, dark hair growing to a widow’s peak over her broad white forehead, blue eyes shining from a rosy face which knew no beauty aid other than soap and water, followed Dr. Benham into the hall and said:

“I never saw anything like her, Doctor. She is suffering terribly, but she just smiles. When it gets especially bad she hums a hymn.”

Miss Dolly dabbed at her eyes with a handkerchief. She added:

“I don’t know when I’ve felt like this, Doctor. I thought I was pretty callous. I wouldn’t care if she screamed or cried.”

Dr. Benham nodded, and said:

“It’s the breed, Miss Dolly.”

On the second day Elihu went home from the hospital and changed into working clothes. He said to Ann:

“Your mother is better today.”

Ann walked out to the carpenter shop with her father. It smelled of clean wood in there. And there was sunshine streaming through the big doors to the south, and a south wind brought the scent of new-mown clover drying in the sun in the south field. A bumble bee was droning in the honeysuckle vine. Vina came out to the barn, looking white and scared. She was wiping red hands on a gingham kitchen apron. She said:

“They want you on the telephone, Mr. Steele.”

Elihu walked out into the sunshine again and through the yard, past the woodshed, into the side door, which opened into the dining room. He went through the dining room into the hall, and picked up the receiver from the telephone box on the wall. He said:

“Hello.”