I shall never forget the look with which Captain Sartell lifted his baby
in his arms. He had seven other children; he was a poor man, a
Wallencamper, but one would have thought him a king, and that the only
hope of his line lay treasured in the mass of flaxen curls pressed
against his shoulder, as he carried her home.
The next morning, early, Captain Sartell appeared at the Ark with a
blanched face. Bess had been growing worse, he said. They feared it was a
fever. He was going to West Wallen for a doctor. "She thinks," he
continued, with absolute white bewilderment on his features, "that she's
in school all the while, and it's a gettin' late, and the teacher ain't
there, and so she keeps a callin' for the teacher; and I wouldn't ask ye
to go up, teacher, if you was anyways afeard, but it 'ud break your heart
to hear her."
For one of my years, I knew singularly little, either of sickness or
death, so I was the more readily susceptible to the slight disrespect the
Captain seemed to have cast on my wisdom and fortitude.
"Certainly I will go and see her," I said; "why should I be afraid?"
"I was only thinkin' it was fair to say," said the Captain; "she was took
so sudden and so violent like, it might be--might be--suthin'--suthin'
kitchin', perhaps.
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