Star-Dust | Page 9

If I
don't tell your father this night!"
It was this queer little congenital urge that kept Lilly on her feet for two
weeks after the malady had hold of her. With a stoicism that taxed her
cruelly, she would march smilingly off to school, a bombardment of
pains shooting through her head, her hands and tongue dry, a ball and
chain of inertia dragging at her ankles.
"Lilly, what is the matter? Why don't you eat your bread and butter
after school? Has Mrs. Schum said anything?"
"No, no, mamma. I'm not hungry, that's all."
"Funny. Open the closet. There is a basket of oranges behind your
father's overcoat, and a bag of baby pretzels, too."
"Goodness! mamma, if I was hungry, I'd eat."
"Don't you feel well, Lilly?"
"Of course I feel well, mamma. Why shouldn't I?"
But next day, at her after-school hour of practice, a small discordant
crash broke suddenly in upon "Chaminade's Scarf Dance" and Mrs.
Becker's rhythmic rocking above. Lilly had fainted, with her head in
her arms and face down among the keys.
Followed two weeks that crowded up the little back parlor with anxiety,
the tension of two doctors in consultation, and a sense of hysteria that

was always just a scratch beneath the surface of Mrs. Becker. She
would break suddenly into loud and unexpected fits of crying, crushing
her palms up against her mouth; would waken from a light doze beside
the bed, on the shriek of a nightmare, and have literally to be dragged
from the room. She harassed the doctors with questions that only the
course of the disease could answer.
The crisis came in the watches of the night, Lilly very straight and very
white and light of breathing in the center of her parents' bed, her glossy
hair in a thick plait over each shoulder, her fine white and developed
chest hardly rising.
"O God! help me to live this night! Ben! Ben!"
"Carrie, you're only making yourself sick and not helping the child."
"My baby! My beautiful snow-white baby! The best child that ever
lived! Help me to live this night!"
"Carrie, little woman, if only you won't take on so. There's every reason
to hope for the best. The doctor assured us."
"How long before we know? Go get Doctor Allison over. Ask Roy
Kemble to run over to Horton's and telephone for Doctor Birch. I want
them here. My baby!"
"Carrie, Carrie, haven't they told you time and time again there is
nothing they can do now? Don't antagonize Doctor Birch by calling
him over here again to-night. Everything is being done for the child.
Now all we can do is to sit and wait and hope for the best."
"You don't care! You're made of iron. At a time like this you stop to
consider the doctors' feelings. Mine don't count. My baby. Get well,
Lilly. Mamma's been cross at times, but never again. We'll do
everything to make you happy. You can read your eyes out and mamma
won't turn out the light on you. Mamma will buy you books and a box
of paints and a little bird's-eye-maple room all your own. Lilly,
mamma's baby. We're going housekeeping--your own piano--your own

room. Aren't we, Ben? Aren't we?"
"Yes, Carrie."
"You can take your choice, baby, of all the things you want to be.
Mamma won't oppose any more, or papa. Opera singing if you want it.
You come by it naturally from my choir voice. Whatever you say, baby.
Even an actress and all the elocution and singing lessons you--"
"Carrie!"
"Oh, you don't care! You're only her father. What does a father know?
You don't care."
Against this age-old indictment of paternity, and absolutely without
precedent, the patient, the iron-gray head of Mr. Becker fell forward, a
fearful and silent storm of sobs beating against his repression.
Full of dumfounded hysteria, walking on her knees around the bed edge
to him, Mrs. Becker drew down his head into the wreath of her arms,
kissing into it, mingling her tears with his, and tasting their anguish.
"My darling! Ben--please, darling! I say a lot of things I don't mean.
You are my husband--and my life. Ben--don't! I can't stand it! Ben!"
At six o'clock Lilly opened her eyes. They were clear and cool and the
petal-like quality was out on her skin.
"Sweet Alice," she said, "oh, Sweet Alice, Ben Bolt," a bit of dream
floating up with her like seaweed to the surface of consciousness.
"Sweet Alice."
She had been reading Trilby, surreptitiously filched from Mrs.
Kemble's stack of novels.
"Lilly--mamma's Lilly!"
"Where--I--Where--"

"In your own room, sweetheart, and your own mother and father beside
you."
"I thought--Sweet Alice--"
"The fever is gone now, Lilly. You won't have any of those thoughts