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Page 29
"She stared at me and she was pretty pale.
"'And Maria ain't the only one you're goin' to kill,' says I.
'You're goin' to kill Doctor Malcom before you're done with him.'
"Then a red colour came flamin' all over her face. 'I ain't goin'
to kill him, either,' says she, and she begun to cry.
"'Yes, you BE!' says I. Then I spoke as I had never spoke before.
You see, I felt it on account of Erastus. I told her that she
hadn't any business to think of another man after she'd been
married to one that had died for her: that she was a dreadful
woman; and she was, that's true enough, but sometimes I have
wondered lately if she knew it--if she wa'n't like a baby with
scissors in its hand cuttin' everybody without knowin' what it was
doin'.
"Luella she kept gettin' paler and paler, and she never took her
eyes off my face. There was somethin' awful about the way she
looked at me and never spoke one word. After awhile I quit talkin'
and I went home. I watched that night, but her lamp went out
before nine o'clock, and when Doctor Malcom came drivin' past and
sort of slowed up he see there wa'n't any light and he drove along.
I saw her sort of shy out of meetin' the next Sunday, too, so he
shouldn't go home with her, and I begun to think mebbe she did have
some conscience after all. It was only a week after that that
Maria Brown died--sort of sudden at the last, though everybody had
seen it was comin'. Well, then there was a good deal of feelin'
and pretty dark whispers. Folks said the days of witchcraft had
come again, and they were pretty shy of Luella. She acted sort of
offish to the Doctor and he didn't go there, and there wa'n't
anybody to do anythin' for her. I don't know how she DID get
along. I wouldn't go in there and offer to help her--not because I
was afraid of dyin' like the rest, but I thought she was just as
well able to do her own work as I was to do it for her, and I
thought it was about time that she did it and stopped killin' other
folks. But it wa'n't very long before folks began to say that
Luella herself was goin' into a decline jest the way her husband,
and Lily, and Aunt Abby and the others had, and I saw myself that
she looked pretty bad. I used to see her goin' past from the store
with a bundle as if she could hardly crawl, but I remembered how
Erastus used to wait and 'tend when he couldn't hardly put one foot
before the other, and I didn't go out to help her.
"But at last one afternoon I saw the Doctor come drivin' up like
mad with his medicine chest, and Mrs. Babbit came in after supper
and said that Luella was real sick.
"'I'd offer to go in and nurse her,' says she, 'but I've got my
children to consider, and mebbe it ain't true what they say, but
it's queer how many folks that have done for her have died.'
"I didn't say anythin', but I considered how she had been Erastus's
wife and how he had set his eyes by her, and I made up my mind to
go in the next mornin', unless she was better, and see what I could
do; but the next mornin' I see her at the window, and pretty soon
she came steppin' out as spry as you please, and a little while
afterward Mrs. Babbit came in and told me that the Doctor had got a
girl from out of town, a Sarah Jones, to come there, and she said
she was pretty sure that the Doctor was goin' to marry Luella.
"I saw him kiss her in the door that night myself, and I knew it
was true. The woman came that afternoon, and the way she flew
around was a caution. I don't believe Luella had swept since Maria
died. She swept and dusted, and washed and ironed; wet clothes and
dusters and carpets were flyin' over there all day, and every time
Luella set her foot out when the Doctor wa'n't there there was that
Sarah Jones helpin' of her up and down the steps, as if she hadn't
learned to walk.
"Well, everybody knew that Luella and the Doctor were goin' to be
married, but it wa'n't long before they began to talk about his
lookin' so poorly, jest as they had about the others; and they
talked about Sarah Jones, too.
"Well, the Doctor did die, and he wanted to be married first, so as
to leave what little he had to Luella, but he died before the
minister could get there, and Sarah Jones died a week afterward.
"Well, that wound up everything for Luella Miller. Not another
soul in the whole town would lift a finger for her. There got to
be a sort of panic. Then she began to droop in good earnest. She
used to have to go to the store herself, for Mrs. Babbit was afraid
to let Tommy go for her, and I've seen her goin' past and stoppin'
every two or three steps to rest. Well, I stood it as long as I
could, but one day I see her comin' with her arms full and stoppin'
to lean against the Babbit fence, and I run out and took her
bundles and carried them to her house. Then I went home and never
spoke one word to her though she called after me dreadful kind of
pitiful. Well, that night I was taken sick with a chill, and I was
sick as I wanted to be for two weeks. Mrs. Babbit had seen me run
out to help Luella and she came in and told me I was goin' to die
on account of it. I didn't know whether I was or not, but I
considered I had done right by Erastus's wife.
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