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Page 67
"Little wife?"
"Yes, Redfield Pepper--"
"I'm as nervous as a cat up a tree with a couple of dogs at the foot!"
"Why, Red, I never heard you talk of being nervous! What does it mean?"
"An operation to-morrow."
"But you never are 'nervous,' dear."
"I am now."
"Is it such a critical one?"
"The most critical I ever faced."
Ellen looked at her husband, or tried to look, for they were moving
slowly along the street, at a late hour, Burns having suggested a short
walk before bedtime. It was quite dark, and Ellen could judge only by her
husband's voice that he spoke with entire soberness.
"Can you tell me anything about it?" she suggested, knowing that relief
from tension sometimes comes with speech. Any confession of nervousness
from Red Pepper Burns seemed to her most extraordinary. She knew that he
often worked under tremendous tension, but he had never before admitted
shakiness of nerve.
"Not much, if anything at all. It's a particularly private affair, for
the present. It's a queer operation, too. I may not handle a knife, tie
an artery, or stitch up a wound--may do less than I ever did in my life
on such an occasion, yet--I'll be hanged if I'm not feeling as owly about
it as if it were the first time I ever expected to see blood."
Ellen put her hand on his arm, slipped it into the curve, and kept it
there, while he held it pressed close against him. "Red, have you been
working too hard lately?" she asked.
"Not a bit. I'm fit as a fiddler. Don't worry, love. I've no business
to talk riddles to you, of all people. But for a peculiar reason I'm
horribly anxious about the outcome of to-morrow's experiment, and had
to work it off somehow. Just promise me that when you say your prayers
to-night you'll ask the good God not to let me be mistaken in forcing a
situation I may not be able to control."
"I will," Ellen promised, with all her heart, for she saw that, whatever
the crisis might be, it was one to which her usually daring husband was
looking forward with most uncharacteristic dread.
She was conscious that Burns spent a restless night. At daybreak he was
up and out of the house. Before he went, however, he bent over her and
kissed her with great tenderness, murmuring, "A prayer or two more,
darling, won't hurt anything, when you are awake enough. I've particular
faith in your petitions."
She held him with both arms.
"Don't worry, Red. It isn't like you. You will succeed, if it is to be."
"It's got to be," he said between his teeth, as he left her.
He swallowed a cup of Cynthia's hot coffee--bespoken the night before,
as on many similar occasions--and ran out to his car just as the slow
September sunrise broke into the eastern sky. In two minutes more he
was off in the Imp, flying out the road to Sunny Farm.
Arrived there he astonished Miss Dodge, the nurse in charge, who was not
accustomed to Dr. Burns's ways. He had left the small patient, Jamie
Ferguson, the night before, entirely satisfied with his condition for
undergoing the operation set for nine o'clock this morning. He now went
once more painstakingly over every detail of the preparation he had
ordered, making sure for himself that nothing had been omitted.
Then he called for Miss Mathewson, who had spent the night at the Farm.
She was to assist Leaver as she was accustomed to assist Burns. He took
her off by herself and addressed her solemnly, more solemnly than he had
ever done.
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