Part 21

“It IS sort of warmish, I rather guess,” said Daniel.

After breakfast, old Daniel announced his intention of taking little Dan'l out for a walk.

At that Sarah Dean fairly exploded. “Be you gone clean daft, Dan'l?” said she. “Don't you know that it actually ain't safe to take out such a delicate little thing as that on such a day?”

“Dr. Trumbull said to take her outdoors for a walk every day, rain or shine,” returned Daniel, obstinately.

“But Dr. Trumbull didn't say to take her out if it rained fire and brimstone, I suppose,” said Sarah Dean, viciously.

Daniel looked at her with mild astonishment.

“It is as much as that child's life is worth to take her out such a day as this,” declared Sarah, viciously.

“Dr. Trumbull said to take no account of the weather,” said Daniel with stubborn patience, “and we will walk on the shady side of the road, and go to Bradley's Brook. It's always a little cool there.”

“If she faints away before you get there, you bring her right home,” said Sarah. She was almost ferocious. “Just because YOU don't feel the heat, to take out that little pindlin' girl such a day!” she exclaimed.

“Dr. Trumbull said to,” persisted Daniel, although he looked a little troubled. Sarah Dean did not dream that, for himself, Daniel Wise would have preferred facing an army with banners to going out under that terrible fusillade of sun-rays. She did not dream of the actual heroism which actuated him when he set out with little Dan'l, holding his big umbrella over her little sunbonneted head and waving in his other hand a palm-leaf fan.

Little Dan'l danced with glee as she went out of the yard. The small, anemic creature did not feel the heat except as a stimulant. Daniel had to keep charging her to walk slowly. “Don't go so fast, little Dan'l, or you'll get overhet, and then what will Mis' Dean say?” he continually repeated.

Little Dan'l's thin, pretty face peeped up at him from between the sides of her green sunbonnet. She pointed one dainty finger at a cloud of pale yellow butterflies in the field beside which they were walking. “Want to chase flutterbies,” she chirped. Little Dan'l had a fascinating way of misplacing her consonants in long words.

“No; you'll get overhet. You just walk along slow with Uncle Dan'l, and pretty soon we'll come to the pretty brook,” said Daniel.

“Where the lagon-dries live?” asked little Dan'l, meaning dragon-flies.

“Yes,” said Daniel. He was conscious, as he spoke, of increasing waves of thready black floating before his eyes. They had floated since dawn, but now they were increasing. Some of the time he could hardly see the narrow sidewalk path between the dusty meadowsweet and hardhack bushes, since those floating black threads wove together into a veritable veil before him. At such times he walked unsteadily, and little Dan'l eyed him curiously.

“Why don't you walk the way you always do?” she queried.

“Uncle Dan'l can't see jest straight, somehow,” replied the old man; “guess it's because it's rather warm.”

It was in truth a day of terror because of the heat. It was one of those days which break records, which live in men's memories as great catastrophes, which furnish head-lines for newspapers, and are alluded to with shudders at past sufferings. It was one of those days which seem to forecast the Dreadful Day of Revelation wherein no shelter may be found from the judgment of the fiery firmament. On that day men fell in their tracks and died, or were rushed to hospitals to be succored as by a miracle. And on that day the poor old man who had all his life feared and dreaded the heat as the most loathly happening of earth, walked afield for love of the little child. As Daniel went on the heat seemed to become palpable--something which could actually be seen. There was now a thin, gaseous horror over the blazing sky, which did not temper the heat, but increased it, giving it the added torment of steam. The clogging moisture seemed to brood over the accursed earth, like some foul bird with deadly menace in wings and beak.

Daniel walked more and more unsteadily. Once he might have fallen had not the child thrown one little arm around a bending knee. “You 'most tumbled down. Uncle Dan'l,” said she. Her little voice had a surprised and frightened note in it.

“Don't you be scared,” gasped Daniel; “we have got 'most to the brook; then we'll be all right. Don't you be scared, and--you walk real slow and not get overhet.”

The brook was near, and it was time. Daniel staggered under the trees beside which the little stream trickled over its bed of stones. It was not much of a brook at best, and the drought had caused it to lose much of its life. However, it was still there, and there were delicious little hollows of coolness between the stones over which it flowed, and large trees stood about with their feet rooted in the blessed damp. Then Daniel sank down. He tried to reach a hand to the water, but could not. The black veil had woven a compact mass before his eyes. There was a terrible throbbing in his head, but his arms were numb.

Little Dan'l stood looking at him, and her lip quivered. With a mighty effort Daniel cleared away the veil and saw the piteous baby face. “Take--Uncle Dan'l's hat and--fetch him--some water,” he gasped. “Don't go too--close and--tumble in.”

The child obeyed. Daniel tried to take the dripping hat, but failed. Little Dan'l was wise enough to pour the water over the old man's head, but she commenced to weep, the pitiful, despairing wail of a child who sees failing that upon which she has leaned for support.

Daniel rallied again. The water on his head gave him momentary relief, but more than anything else his love for the child nerved him to effort.

“Listen, little Dan'l,” he said, and his voice sounded in his own ears like a small voice of a soul thousands of miles away. “You take the--umbrella, and--you take the fan, and you go real slow, so you don't get overhet, 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!”