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Page 28
"'Weak heart,' says she, 'weak heart; weak fiddlesticks! There
ain't nothin' weak about that woman. She's got strength enough to
hang onto other folks till she kills 'em. Weak? It was my poor
mother that was weak: this woman killed her as sure as if she had
taken a knife to her.'
"But the Doctor he didn't pay much attention. He was bendin' over
Luella layin' there with her yellow hair all streamin' and her
pretty pink-and-white face all pale, and her blue eyes like stars
gone out, and he was holdin' onto her hand and smoothin' her
forehead, and tellin' me to get the brandy in Aunt Abby's room, and
I was sure as I wanted to be that Luella had got somebody else to
hang onto, now Aunt Abby was gone, and I thought of poor Erastus
Miller, and I sort of pitied the poor young Doctor, led away by a
pretty face, and I made up my mind I'd see what I could do.
"I waited till Aunt Abby had been dead and buried about a month,
and the Doctor was goin' to see Luella steady and folks were
beginnin' to talk; then one evenin', when I knew the Doctor had
been called out of town and wouldn't be round, I went over to
Luella's. I found her all dressed up in a blue muslin with white
polka dots on it, and her hair curled jest as pretty, and there
wa'n't a young girl in the place could compare with her. There was
somethin' about Luella Miller seemed to draw the heart right out of
you, but she didn't draw it out of ME. She was settin' rocking in
the chair by her sittin'-room window, and Maria Brown had gone
home. Maria Brown had been in to help her, or rather to do the
work, for Luella wa'n't helped when she didn't do anythin'. Maria
Brown was real capable and she didn't have any ties; she wa'n't
married, and lived alone, so she'd offered. I couldn't see why she
should do the work any more than Luella; she wa'n't any too strong;
but she seemed to think she could and Luella seemed to think so,
too, so she went over and did all the work--washed, and ironed, and
baked, while Luella sat and rocked. Maria didn't live long
afterward. She began to fade away just the same fashion the others
had. Well, she was warned, but she acted real mad when folks said
anythin': said Luella was a poor, abused woman, too delicate to
help herself, and they'd ought to be ashamed, and if she died
helpin' them that couldn't help themselves she would--and she did.
"'I s'pose Maria has gone home,' says I to Luella, when I had gone
in and sat down opposite her.
"'Yes, Maria went half an hour ago, after she had got supper and
washed the dishes,' says Luella, in her pretty way.
"'I suppose she has got a lot of work to do in her own house to-
night,' says I, kind of bitter, but that was all thrown away on
Luella Miller. It seemed to her right that other folks that wa'n't
any better able than she was herself should wait on her, and she
couldn't get it through her head that anybody should think it
WA'N'T right.
"'Yes,' says Luella, real sweet and pretty, 'yes, she said she had
to do her washin' to-night. She has let it go for a fortnight
along of comin' over here.'
"'Why don't she stay home and do her washin' instead of comin'
over here and doin' YOUR work, when you are just as well able, and
enough sight more so, than she is to do it?' says I.
"Then Luella she looked at me like a baby who has a rattle shook at
it. She sort of laughed as innocent as you please. 'Oh, I can't
do the work myself, Miss Anderson,' says she. 'I never did. Maria
HAS to do it.'
"Then I spoke out: 'Has to do it I' says I. 'Has to do it!' She
don't have to do it, either. Maria Brown has her own home and
enough to live on. She ain't beholden to you to come over here and
slave for you and kill herself.'
"Luella she jest set and stared at me for all the world like a
doll-baby that was so abused that it was comin' to life.
"'Yes,' says I, 'she's killin' herself. She's goin' to die just
the way Erastus did, and Lily, and your Aunt Abby. You're killin'
her jest as you did them. I don't know what there is about you,
but you seem to bring a curse,' says I. 'You kill everybody that
is fool enough to care anythin' about you and do for you.'
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