Little Tora, The Swedish Schoolmistress and Other Stories | Page 9

might be at least not chilly when needed. Two of them were immediately put into requisition. Nils, as in the most desperate case, was stripped and rubbed down, and put into bed at once; and then the little schoolmistress was looked after. She had obeyed orders, and her pale face lay on the pillow when she was visited. The quondam hostess left her suddenly, and soon returned with a hot drink, which she assured the patient would make her "quite natural." To Nils a similar draught was administered, with the command that he should dash it down at once, with "no sipping," and go to sleep afterwards.
"Wasn't that whisky?" exclaimed Nils, in surprise.
"There was a drop in it," owned the mother; adding, "I would give it clear to anybody dying. I am not wild crazy about temperance, boy."
"Do you think I am dying?" said Nils; and then he hastily added, "I should not like to leave you and the schoolmistress; but for anything else I should not mind. Maybe I should be like other folks up there."
"Hush, child! You are not dying, nor likely to be; you are as strong as a bear. A little dip in cold water is not going to hurt you. That stuff has gone to your head and made you melancholy-like and weepish. It does sometimes; it don't generally, though, just in a minute. You go to sleep; and don't let me hear anything from you for one while."
The mother put down the thick paper shade, and set a pin here and there along the edge, to keep out any adventurous rays of light that might be peeping in at the sleeper--"a pin practice" she had sorely complained of when ventured upon by restless lodgers. The same process was gone through in the room where the mistress was lying. The locks and hinges of the doors were carefully oiled, and then the agitated woman sat down to meditate and be thankful. The meditation proved to be of the perambulatory sort, for she peeped into one room and then into the other, noiselessly appearing and retiring. She listened to see if her patients were alive. The schoolmistress lay pale and still; her hands, loosely spread out, dropped on the sheet almost as colourless as itself. But she breathed regularly; that was an ascertained fact. Nils was frequently visited. He gave audible tokens as to how he was enjoying himself. The mother sat down for the fifth or sixth time, as it might be, in the great, quiet room. She did not enter upon any of her favourite branches of home industry; she thought them too noisy for the occasion. She was not a reader. She could but nod a little in her chair, and then make another round of observation.
At last, towards evening, the schoolmistress was fairly awake; and such a dish of porridge as she was obliged to consume! Such a series of inquiries she was subjected to as to her symptoms and sensations as would have done credit to a young medical practitioner examining his first patient, though the questions, in this case, were practically rather than scientifically put, and could actually be understood by the respondent.
To have quiet was all that the little schoolmistress craved, and that she was at last allowed. As for Nils, it was plain that he considered that small apartment his sleeping-car, for which his ticket had been taken for the livelong night.
The schoolmistress rose early. Her room was soon in perfect order. She was reading devoutly in the Bible: that had been an accessory in the arrangement of her room, as of all the other small dormitories, since the hostess "had her way in her own house."
Tora suddenly heard a quick repeated knock at her door. The permission to enter was hardly given when Nils burst in, his face glowing with delight.
"It's all right with me, teacher!" he exclaimed--"it's all right with me! You know that hymn I've tried to learn so many times, and couldn't make out. The first line came into my head yesterday in our troubles--'God is our stronghold and defence;' but I could not get any further."
"Perhaps that was far enough just then, Nils," said Tora. "I thought of that line too myself when I first suspected how matters stood, as I sat there with my book before me."
"But, teacher, I'm all right. This morning I thought I would read that hymn all over, and I did--twice. And then, O teacher, I'm all right, for the whole hymn just repeated itself in my mind as if I had the book before me. I asked mother to hear me, and when she saw I could say it all through without a stumble, she put her arms round my neck and cried and talked about herself