Dorothy South

“I wouldn’t,” was all the answer the young man made; but he put a strong stress upon the last word.

“Oh, I know you wouldn’t,” answered the girl, treating his response as quite a matter of course. “But you see now why a woman must keep silent where a man should speak out. If a man tells the truth he can be called to account for it; so if he is manly he will tell it and take the consequences. But a woman has to remember that if she tells the truth, and the truth happens to be ugly, some man must be shot at for her words.”

“Dorothy,” asked Arthur, with unusual seriousness, “are you afraid of anything?”

“Afraid? No. Of course not.”

“If you were needed very badly for the sake of other people – even negroes – if you could save their lives and ease their sufferings, you’d want to do it, wouldn’t you?”

“Why, of course, Cousin Arthur. I’ve read in Aunt Polly’s old newspapers, how you went to Norfolk in the yellow fever time, and how bravely you – never mind. I’ve read all about that, over and over again, and it’s part of what makes me like you.”

“But courage is not expected of women.”

“Oh, yes, it is,” quickly responded the girl. “Not the courage of fighting, of course – but that’s only because men won’t fight with women, except in mean ways. Women are expected to show courage in other ways, and they do it too. In the newspapers that tell about your heroism at Norfolk, there is a story of how one of your nurses went always to the most dangerous cases, and how, when she died, you officiated at her funeral, instead of the clergyman who had got scared and run away like a coward that did not trust his God. I remember what the newspaper says that you said at the grave, Cousin Arthur. I’ve got it all by heart. You said, at the end of your address: – ‘We are accustomed to pay honor and to set up monuments to men who have dared, where daring offered its rich reward of fame and glory. Let us reverently bow our heads and abase our feeble, selfish souls, in presence of the courage of this frail woman, who, in her weakness, has achieved greater things in the sight of God than any that the valor and strength of man have ever accomplished since the foundations of the world were laid. Let us reverently and lovingly make obeisance to the courage of a devoted woman – a courage that we men can never hope to match.’ You see I remember all that you said then, Cousin Arthur, and so you needn’t tell me now that you do not expect courage at the hands of women.”

Arthur made no immediate reply, and the two rode on in silence for a time. After a while, as they neared the house gates, he spoke.

“Dorothy,” he said, “I need your help very badly. You cannot render me the help I want without very serious danger to yourself. So I don’t want you to give me any answer to what I am about to say until tomorrow. I want you to think the matter over very carefully first.”

“Tell me what it is, Cousin Arthur.”

“Why, I find that we are to have a very dangerous epidemic of typhoid fever among the negroes here. When the first case occurred ten days ago I hoped that might be all; but two days later I found two more cases; day before yesterday there were five more. So it is obvious that we are to have an epidemic. All the cases have appeared among the field hands and their families out at the far quarters, and so I hope that the house servants and the people around the stables will escape. But the outbreak is really very serious and the disease is of the most virulent type. I must literally fight it with fire. I have already set men at work building new quarters down by the Silver Spring, a mile away from the infected place, and as soon as I can I’m going to move all the people and set fire to all the old quarters. I’ve bought an old circus tent in Richmond, and I expect it by express today. As soon as it comes I’m going to set it up on the Haw Branch hill, and put all the sick people into it, so as to separate them from those that are well. As fast as others show symptoms of the disease, I’ll remove them also to the hospital tent, and for that purpose I have ordered forty cots and a lot of new blankets and pillows.”

Dorothy ejaculated her sorrow and sympathy with the poor blacks, and quickly added the question: “What is it that I can do, Cousin Arthur? Tell me; you know I will do it.”

“But, Dorothy, dear, I don’t want you to make up your mind till you have thought it all over.”

“My mind is already made up. You want me to nurse these poor sick people, and of course I’m going to do it. You are thinking that the disease is contagious – ”

“No, it is only infectious,” he broke in with the instinct of scientific exactitude strong upon him.

“Well, anyhow, it’s catching, and you think I may catch it, and you want me to think out whether I’m afraid of that or not. Very well. I’ve already thought that out. You are going to be with the sick people night and day. Cousin Arthur, I am only a girl, but I’m no more a coward than you are. Tell me what I’m to do. It doesn’t need any thinking out.”

“But, Dorothy, listen to me. These are not your people. If this outbreak had occurred at Pocahontas, the matter would have been different. You might well think that you owed a duty to the people on your own plantation, but you owe none to these people of mine.”

“Oh, yes, I do. I live at Wyanoke. Besides they are human beings and they are in need of help. I don’t know how I can help, but you are going to tell me, and I’m going to do what you want. I will not waste a day in thinking.”

“But, my child, the danger in this case is really very great. Indeed it is extremely probable that if you do what you propose to do, you will have the fever, and as I have already said, it has assumed an unusually virulent form.”

“It can’t be more dangerous than the yellow fever was at Norfolk, and you braved that in order to save the lives of people you had never heard of – people to whom you owed nothing whatever. Cousin Arthur, do you think me less brave than you are?”

“No, dear, but – ”

“Very well. You shall tell me after breakfast precisely what I can do, and then I’ll do it. Women are naturally bad, and so they mustn’t lose any opportunity of doing good when they can.”

At that moment they arrived at the house gates. Slipping from her saddle, Dorothy turned her great, earnest eyes full upon her companion, and said with tense lips:

“Promise me one thing, Cousin Arthur! Promise me that if I die in this work you won’t ask any clergyman to mutter worn-out words from a prayer book over my grave, but will yourself say to my friends that I did not shirk like a coward!”

Instantly, and without waiting for the promise she had besought, the girl turned, caught up her long riding skirt and fled like a deer to the house.

XI

THE WOMAN’S AWAKENING

IT was upon a momentary impulse that Arthur Brent had suggested to Dorothy that she should help him in the battle with pestilence which lay before him. As a physician he had been accustomed to practise his profession not in the ordinary, perfunctory way, and not for gain, but in the spirit of a crusader combating disease as the arch enemy of humanity, and partly too for the joy of conquering so merciless a foe. His first thought in this case therefore had been to call to his aid the best assistance available. His chief difficulty, he clearly foresaw, would be in getting his measures intelligently carried out. He must secure the accurate, prompt and intelligent execution of his directions, whether for the administration of medicines prescribed or for hygienic measures ordered. The ignorance, the prejudice, and the inert carelessness of the negroes, he felt, would be his mightiest and wiliest foes in this, and there could be no abler adjutant for this purpose than Dorothy, with her quick wit, her scrupulous conscientiousness and her habit of compelling exact and instant obedience to all her commands. So he had thought first of calling upon Dorothy for help. But when she had so promptly responded, he began to feel that he had made a mistake. The physician in him, and the crusader too, sanctioned and approved the use of the best means available for the accomplishment of his high purpose. But the man in him, the friend, the affectionate protector, protested against such an exposure of the child to dreadful danger.

When he reflected upon the matter and thought of the peril; when he conjured up a picture of dear little Dorothy stricken and perhaps dead in a service of humanity to which no duty called her, and to which she had been induced only by her loyalty to him, he shrank back in horror from the program he had laid out.

Yet he knew that he could not easily undo what he had done. There was a child side to Dorothy, and it was that which usually presented itself to his mind when he thought of her. But there was a strong woman side to her also, as he very well knew, and over that he had established no influence or control. He had won the love of the child. He had not yet won the love of the woman. He realized that it was the masterful, woman side of her nature that he had called into activity in this matter. Now that the heroism of the brave woman’s soul was enlisted, he knew that he could not easily bid it turn back.

Yet something might be done by adroit management, and he resolved upon that. After breakfast he sent for Dorothy and said, lightly:

“I’m glad I have taught you to handle drugs skilfully, Dorothy. I shall need certain medicines frequently in this conflict. They are our ammunition for the battle, and we must have them always ready. I’m going to write some prescriptions for you to fill. I want you to spend today and tomorrow in the laboratory preparing them. One of them will tax your skill a good deal. It may take you several days to get it ready. It involves some very careful chemical processes – for you must first manufacture a part of your chemicals out of their raw materials. I’ll write detailed instructions for that, but you may fail half a dozen times before you succeed. You must be patient and you’ll get it right. You always do in the end. Then there’s another thing I want you to do for me. I’m going to burn all the clothing, bedding and so forth at the quarters. I’ll make each of the well negroes put on the freshest clothing he has before removing to the sanitary camp, and I’ll burn all the rest. I sent Dick early this morning to the Court House, telling Moses to send me all the blankets and all the cloth he has of every kind, from calico and osnaburgs to heavy woollen goods, and I’ve written to Richmond for more. We must clothe the negroes anew – men, women and children. So I want you to get together all your seamstresses – every woman on the plantation indeed who can sew even a little bit – and set them all at work making clothes. I’ve cleared out the prize barn for the purpose, and the men are now laying a rough floor in it and putting up some tables on which you and Aunt Polly can ‘cut out’ – that’s what you call it, isn’t it?”

“Cousin Arthur,” said the girl, looking at him with something of reproach in her great, dark blue eyes, “I’ll do all this of course, and everything else that you want done. But please, Cousin Arthur, don’t tell lies to me, even indirectly. I couldn’t stand that from you.”

“What do you mean, child?”

“Oh, you have made up your mind to keep me busy with all these things so that I shall not go into your hospital to serve as a nurse. I’ll do these things for you, but I’ll do the nursing too. So please let us be good friends and please don’t try to play tricks.”

The young man was astonished and abashed. Under ordinary circumstances he might truthfully have pleaded that the work he was thus laying out for her was really and pressingly necessary. But Dorothy anticipated him in that.

“Don’t tell me that these things are necessary, Cousin Arthur. I know that perfectly well. But you know that I am not necessary to them – except so far as the prescriptions are concerned. Aunt Polly can direct the clothes making better than I can, and her maid, Jane, is almost as good. So after I compound the prescriptions I shall go to my duty at the hospital. I don’t think I like you very well today, Cousin Arthur, and I’ll not like you at all if you go on trying to make up things to keep me busy, away from the sick people. If you do that again I’ll stop calling you ‘Cousin Arthur’ and you’ll be just ‘Dr. Brent’ to me.”

“Please don’t do that, Dorothy,” he said very pleadingly. “I only meant – ”

“Oh, I know what you meant,” she interrupted. “But you shouldn’t treat me in that way. I won’t call you ‘Dr. Brent,’ unless you do that sort of thing again, and if you let me do my duty without trying to play tricks, I’ll go on liking you just as much as ever.”

“Thank you, Dorothy,” he replied with fervor. “You must forgive me, please. I didn’t want to expose you to this danger – that was all.”

“Oh, I understand all that,” she quickly responded. “But it wasn’t treating me quite fairly – and you know I hate unfairness. And – why shouldn’t I be exposed to the danger if I can do any good? Even if the worst should happen – even if I should take the fever and die, after saving some of these poor creatures’ lives, could you or anybody have made a better use of a girl like me than that?”

Arthur looked at the child earnestly, but the child was no longer there. The eyes that gazed into his were those of a woman!

XII

MAMMY

WHEN Arthur Brent reached the “quarters” that morning he found matters in worse condition than he had feared.

“The whole spot is pestilential,” he said. “How any sane man ever selected it for quarters, I can’t imagine. Gilbert,” calling to the head man who had come in from the field at his master’s summons, “I want you to take all the people out of the crop at once, and send for all the house servants too. Take them with you over to the Haw Branch hill and put every one of them at work building some sort of huts. You must get enough of them done before night, to hold the sick people, for I’m going to clear out these quarters today. I must have enough huts for the sick ones at once. Those who are well will have to sleep out of doors at the Silver Spring tonight.”

“But, Mahstah,” remonstrated Gilbert, “dey ain’t no clapboa’ds to roof wif. Dey ain’t no nuffin – ”

“Use fence rails then and cover them with pine tops. I’ll ride over and direct you presently. Send me eight or ten of the strongest young women at once, and then get everybody to work on the shelters. Do you hear?”

When the women came he instructed them how to carry the sick on improvised litters, and half an hour later, with his own hand he set fire to the little negro village. He had allowed nothing to be carried away from it, and he left nothing to chance. One of the negroes came back in frantic haste to save certain “best clothes” and a banjo that he had laboriously made. Arthur ordered him instead to fill up the well with rubbish, so that no one might drink of its waters again.