The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Sick-a-Bed Lady, by Eleanor Hallowell doc

[...]... just the SickA-Bed Lady, and pretty soon it will be the Death-Bed Lady, and then it will be the Dead-and-Buried Lady—and that's all we'll ever know about it." He shivered clammily as he finished and reached for a scorching glass of whisky on the table But the Young Doctor did not feel so lugubrious the next day and the next and the next, when he found the Sick-A-Bed Lady rallying slowly but surely to the. .. little end of her tongue to the Young Doctor's hand After that, though, for quite a few minutes her brain felt clean and tidy, and she talked quite pleasantly to the Young Doctor: "Have you got any bones in your arms?" she asked wistfully "Why, yes, indeed," said the Young Doctor, "rather more than the usual number of bones Why?" "I'd give my life," said the Sick-A-Bed Lady, "if there were bones in my silky... with the ocean, and vain as a kitten over her pink ribbons the Old Doctor wouldn't let them cut her hair—and everything went on like that, till in a horrid flash the Old Doctor dropped dead that morning at the breakfast table, the little girl went loony again, and every possible clew to her identity was wiped off the earth!" "No baggage?" suggested the Best Friend "Why, of course, there was baggage!" the. ..CONTENTS page The Sick-a-Bed Lady 3 Hickory Dock 33 The Very Tired Girl 57 The Happy-Day 89 The Runaway Road 127 Something that Happened in October 161 The Amateur Lover 195 Heart of the City 253 The Pink Sash 291 Woman's Only Business 331 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS "That will help you remember where your mouth is" Frontispiece facing page With no other object, except to get home The blue ocean was the most... rest What else was there to think about in bed but funny things like that? It was the Old Doctor who had brought the Sick-A-Bed Lady to the big white house at the edge of the Ocean, and placed her in the cool, quaint room with its front windows quizzing dreamily out to sea, and its side windows cuddled close to the curving village street It was a long, tiresome, dangerous journey, and the SickA-Bed Lady... her half-closed eyes, looked right in the Young Man's Face and said: "Got any arms?" The Young Man's Face nodded perfectly politely, and smiled as he raised two strong, lean hands to the edge of the footboard, and hunched his shoulders obligingly across the sky line "How do you feel?" he asked very gently Then the Sick-A-Bed Lady knew at once that it was the Young Doctor, and wondered why she hadn't... die, I shall die, I shall die," every step of the way, but, after all, it was the Old Doctor who did the dying! Just like a snap of the finger he went at the end of two weeks, and the Sick-A-Bed Lady rallied to the shock with a plaintive: "Seems to me he was in an awful hurry," and fell back on her soft bed into days of unconsciousness that were broken only by riotous visions day and night of an old man... trouble the Sick-A-Bed Lady woke one day to find herself quite alone and quite alive She had often felt alone before, but it was a long time since she had felt alive The world seemed very pleasant The flowers on the wall-paper were still unwilted, and the green paper birds hung airily without fatigue The room was full of the most enticing odor of cinnamon pinks, and by raising herself up in bed the merest... dignity on the statement: "Well, of course, it wasn't so much what she said as the way she said it." For days and days that followed, the Sick-A-Bed Lady was conscious of nothing except the Young Man's Face on the footboard of the bed It never seemed to wabble, it never seemed to waver, but just stayed there perfectly balanced on the point of its chin, watching her gravely with its blue, blue eyes There... sort of gentle daze watching the world go by without her, but little by little her body strengthened as a wilted flower freshens in water, and little by little she struggled harder for words that even then did not always match her thoughts The village continued to speculate about her lost identity, but the Young Doctor seemed to worry less and less about it as time went on If the sweetest little girl you .