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Page 20
"Thou Ruler of the light and dark,
Guide through the tempest Thine own Ark;
Amid the howling, wintry sea,
We are in port if we have Thee."
So the winter passed, and the spring; and another summer came and went,
with little change to the quiet Burnet household, and Katy's brief life
with her husband began to seem dreamy and unreal, it lay so far behind.
And then, with the beginning of the second winter came a new anxiety.
Phil, as we said in the last chapter, had grown too fast to be very
strong, and was the most delicate of the family in looks and health,
though full of spirit and fun. Going out to skate with some other boys the
week before Christmas, on a pond which was not so securely frozen as it
looked, the ice gave way; and though no one was drowned, the whole party
had a drenching, and were thoroughly chilled. None of the others minded it
much, but the exposure had a serious effect on Phil. He caught a bad cold
which rapidly increased into pneumonia; and Christmas Day, usually such a
bright one in the Carr household, was overshadowed by anxious forebodings,
for Phil was seriously ill, and the doctor felt by no means sure how
things would turn with him. The sisters nursed him devotedly, and by
March he was out again; but he did not get _well_ or lose the persistent
little cough, which kept him thin and weak. Dr. Carr tried this remedy and
that, but nothing seemed to do much good; and Katy thought that her father
looked graver and more anxious every time that he tested Phil's
temperature or listened at his chest.
"It's not serious yet," he told her in private; "but I don't like the look
of things. The boy is just at a turning-point. Any little thing might set
him one way or the other. I wish I could send him away from this damp lake
climate."
But sending a half-sick boy away is not such an easy thing, nor was it
quite clear where he ought to go. So matters drifted along for another
month, and then Phil settled the question for himself by having a slight
hemorrhage. It was evident that something must be done, and speedily--but
what? Dr. Carr wrote to various medical acquaintances, and in reply
pamphlets and letters poured in, each designed to prove that the
particular part of the country to which the pamphlet or the letter
referred was the only one to which it was at all worth while to consign an
invalid with delicate lungs. One recommended Florida, another Georgia, a
third South Carolina; a fourth and fifth recommended cold instead of heat,
and an open air life with the mercury at zero. It was hard to decide what
was best.
"He ought not to go off alone either," said the puzzled father. "He is
neither old enough nor wise enough to manage by himself, but who to send
with him is the puzzle. It doubles the expense, too."
"Perhaps I--" began Katy, but her father cut her short with a gesture.
"No, Katy, I couldn't permit that. Your husband is due in a few weeks now.
You must be free to go to him wherever he is, not hampered with the care
of a sick brother. Besides, whoever takes charge of Phil must be prepared
for a long absence,--at least a year. It must be either Clover or myself;
and as it seems out of the question that I shall drop my practice for a
year, Clover is the person."
"Phil is seventeen now," suggested Katy. "That is not so very young."
"No, not if he were in full health. Plenty of boys no older than he have
gone out West by themselves, and fared perfectly well. But in Phil's
condition that would never answer. He has a tendency to be low-spirited
about himself too, and he needs incessant care and watchfulness."
"Out West," repeated Katy. "Have you decided, then?"
"Yes. The letter I had yesterday from Hope, makes me pretty sure that St.
Helen's is the best place we have heard of."
"St. Helen's! Where is that?"
"It is one of the new health-resorts in Colorado which has lately come
into notice for consumptives. It's very high up; nearly or quite six
thousand feet, and the air is said to be something remarkable."
"Clover will manage beautifully, I think; she is such a sensible little
thing," said Katy.
"She seems to me, and he too, about as fit to go off two thousand miles by
themselves as the Babes in the Wood," remarked Dr. Carr, who, like many
other fathers, found it hard to realize that his children had outgrown
their childhood. "However, there's no help for it. If I don't stay and
grind away at the mill, there is no one to pay for this long journey.
Clover will have to do her best."
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