The Copy-Cat [31]
and you tell Mis' Dean, and --" Then old Daniel's tremendous nerve, that he had summoned for the sake of love, failed him, and he sank back. He was quite unconscious -- his face, staring blindly up at the terrible sky between the trees, was to little Dan'l like the face of a stranger. She gave one cry, more like the yelp of a trodden animal than a child's voice. Then she took the open umbrella and sped away. The umbrella bobbed wildly -- nothing could be seen of poor little Dan'l but her small, speeding feet. She wailed loudly all the way. She was half-way home when, plodding along in a cloud of brown dust, a horse appeared in the road. The horse wore a straw bonnet and advanced very slowly. He drew a buggy, and in the buggy were Dr. Trumbull and Johnny, his son. He had called at Daniel's to see the little girl, and, on being told that they had gone to walk, had said something under his breath and turned his horse's head down the road. "When we meet them, you must get out, Johnny," he said, "and I will take in that poor old man and that baby. I wish I could put common sense in every bottle of medicine. A day like this!" Dr. Trumbull exclaimed when he saw the great bobbing black umbrella and heard the wails. The straw-bonneted horse stopped abruptly. Dr. Trum- bull leaned out of the buggy. "Who are you?" he demanded. "Uncle Dan'l is gone," shrieked the child. "Gone where? What do you mean?" "He -- tumbled right down, and then he was -- somebody else. He ain't there." "Where is 'there'? Speak up quick!" "The brook -- Uncle Dan'l went away at the brook." Dr. Trumbull acted swiftly. He gave Johnny a push. "Get out," he said. "Take that baby into Jim Mann's house there, and tell Mrs. Mann to keep her in the shade and look out for her, and you tell Jim, if he hasn't got his horse in his farm-wagon, to look lively and harness her in and put all the ice they've got in the house in the wagon. Hurry!" Johnny was over the wheel before his father had finished speaking, and Jim Mann just then drew up alongside in his farm-wagon. "What's to pay?" he inquired, breathless. He was a thin, sinewy man, scantily clad in cotton trousers and a shirt wide open at the breast. Green leaves protruded from under the brim of his tilted straw hat. "Old Daniel Wise is overcome by the heat," an- swered Dr. Trumbull. "Put all the ice you have in the house in your wagon, and come along. I'll leave my horse and buggy here. Your horse is faster." Presently the farm-wagon clattered down the road, dust-hidden behind a galloping horse. Mrs. Jim Mann, who was a loving mother of children, was soothing little Dan'l. Johnny Trumbull watched at the gate. When the wagon returned he ran out and hung on behind, while the strong, ungainly farm-horse galloped to the house set high on the sun-baked terraces. When old Daniel revived he found himself in the best parlor, with ice all about him. Thunder was rolling overhead and hail clattered on the windows. A sudden storm, the heat-breaker, had come up and the dreadful day was vanquished. Daniel looked up and smiled a vague smile of astonishment at Dr. Trumbull and Sarah Dean; then his eyes wandered anxiously about. "The child is all right," said Dr. Trumbull; "don't you worry, Daniel. Mrs. Jim Mann is tak- ing care of her. Don't you try to talk. You didn't exactly have a sunstroke, but the heat was too much for you." But Daniel spoke, in spite of the doctor's man- date. "The heat," said he, in a curiously clear voice," ain't never goin' to be too much for me again." "Don't you talk, Daniel," repeated Dr. Trum- bull. "You've always been nervous about the heat. Maybe you won't be again, but keep still. When I told you to take that child out every day I didn't mean when the world was like Sodom and Gomor- rah. Thank God, it will be cooler now." Sarah Dean stood beside the doctor. She looked pale and severe, but adequate. She did not even state that she had urged old Daniel not to go out. There was true character in Sarah Dean. The weather that summer was an unexpected quantity. Instead of the day after the storm being cool,