Never Too Late (18 page)

Katie set down the letter and did as Rob asked. She prayed that God would show him what he was supposed to do.

A S
CARE

25

O
ne Sunday Jeremiah and I went for a ride through the woods on the road west toward Mr. Thurston's. It was a pretty hot day, and the two horses were wet with salt and sweat when we got back to Rosewood. We were hot and sweaty too
.

We washed the horses down and scrubbed and brushed them with several buckets of water. Then, like always seemed to happen on a hot day around the pump, we got to playing and splashing in the water ourselves, pumping it out and dousing each other with water as fast as we could pump it
.

Pretty soon Katie had come along and was getting in on the fun and the three of us were running all over the place, laughing and yelling at each other. It wasn't quite as out of control and silly as the water fights used to be with Emma and William. Emma could get mighty wild! But it got wild enough that Josepha came out and stood on the porch watching,
with her dish towel in hand, wondering what had got into us
.

Jeremiah had the easiest time of it since he could easily outrun Katie and me, especially after our dresses got soaked and heavy and clingy. But it felt so good!

Frantic to escape Jeremiah as he came after me with a bucket half full of water, I ran laughing and giggling toward the cabin Henry had been working on
.

“Henry . . . Henry!” I cried, running inside full of the spirit of play. But Henry wasn't there
.

I ran through the house and out the back door just as I heard Jeremiah pounding up the front steps. Laughing and giving myself away, I dashed around the back side of the house between the wall of a new room Henry had added and a woodpile of boards and wood scraps. I was so caught up in the chase that I never saw the tail of a snake sticking out from beneath the wood where it had crawled to find shade. Startled from the sudden noise and my kicking the edge of the board and disturbing him, it quickly reacted
.

I screamed in pain as it struck, and I fell to the ground as I ran. My leg was almost numb
.

Jeremiah was beside me in an instant. He picked up the nearest board and clubbed the snake to death with a fury I'd never seen. Then he stooped down, picked me up, and ran for the house, yelling for Papa and everyone else that I'd been bit by a copperhead
.

By the time we reached the house I was already feeling faint. I heard voices and shouts and was
aware of people hurrying up, but everything was a confusion in my brain. I didn't know whether I was afraid or not. Jeremiah laid me down on the porch, and it's a good thing I didn't see what was about to happen because it would have scared me to death, but the next instant Uncle Ward pulled out his long sharp knife and sliced a huge gash in my leg and then sucked at the blood as hard as he could, spitting it out on the ground
.

“Laws almighty!” I heard Josepha exclaim, “dat blood's all yeller!”

“That's not blood, Josepha,” said my papa. “That's venom.—Kathleen, Jeremiah . . . run for ice. See if there's any left in the icehouse. Bring it all! We've got to cool that leg down.”

I was hardly aware of the pain because my leg was numb. Uncle Ward sucked at the wound several more times, then cut it again, even deeper, and did the same thing just like before
.

“Templeton, start pumping water into the big washtub!” he yelled. “I'll do what I can here, then we've got to get her into cold water to try to keep it from spreading through her body. I saw it in California. Sometimes it works. And keep the dogs away!”

That was all I heard
.

The next thing I knew I was in my own bed upstairs. I woke up all dreamy-like, sort of coming only half awake. All I could feel in my leg was a cold numbness. And heaviness. It was so heavy I couldn't move it if I'd tried. I was cold all over even though I
was in bed. I heard myself groan and someone came hurrying over. I think it was Katie. She bent down over me and said some words and kissed me, but I didn't know what she said, or even if it was her. Then I moaned some more and the light faded and I fell asleep again
.

I awoke to pitch black. My first thought was that I was dead. Then I heard a few crickets and the bark of a dog in the distance, and I knew it was night. I was no longer cold. I felt an itching. I tried to scratch at my leg but felt nothing
.

Again consciousness faded
.

Voices and movement disturbed me
.

Again it was light but I could see nothing clearly. All was a blur. I tried to say something, but no sound came from my mouth
.

People were talking . . . strange voices
.

“. . . have to wait and see,” said a man I did not seem to know. “It's . . . get her to drink . . . got to have water
. . .
”

“How long before . . . know?” said another man's voice
.

“Can't . . . see how . . . lose the leg . . . better than dying.”

Somebody started to cry
.

Again I fell asleep
.

When I awoke the next time, instead of cold I was on fire—my leg, my whole body. I couldn't imagine
what I was doing in this bed with blankets heaped up over me!

I tried to say something but again all that came out was a moan
.

Voices . . . someone came to the bedside . . . whoever it was put a cup to my lips and lifted me enough so that I could drink. The water felt good. I was so hot all over!

“Drink . . . drink as much as you can, Mayme,” said the voice
.

But I felt half the water dribble down my face and neck. I lay back down, so hot I couldn't stand it. A cool wet cloth went over my face and forehead. It felt good
.

I awoke in a thin light of what seemed to be dusk
.

I wasn't quite so hot. Two people were in the room sitting beside my bed. I recognized their voices
.

“. . . layin' dere like dat reminds me er da day she wuz born,” said a woman's voice
.

“You were there?” said a man
.

“ 'Course I wuz—her mama hadn't been dere long an' she wuz feared somethin' wuz gwine happen ter her. She knew her little baby wuz gwine be a girl. She tol' me so.”

I could hear them clearly. But I couldn't move or say anything. I knew they were talking about me
.

“What was she like?” asked the man
.

“She wuz uncommonly pretty, an' refined too. We didn't know where she'd come from, an' she kept to
herself. You could tell she wuz sad. I figgered it had to do wiff leavin' a man. I knew what it wuz like ter be alone, an' tried ter be her frien'.”

“Did she . . . did she ever say anything about . . . you know, what she'd left behind?”

“She thought 'bout it—I could tell from the look on her face dat she never stopped lovin' da man. But she didn't talk none 'bout it.”

“Tell me about the day of the birth,” said the man
.

“Dat wuz da day she asked me to promise . . .”

They continued to talk, but I was drifting away again and could hardly hear them
.

After a while it got real quiet. I felt a hand on my body. I almost thought I heard what might have been someone crying. But then the blurry light faded again and I heard nothing more
.

When my brain came to itself the next time, I was dreaming. Though I couldn't tell the difference between dreaming and lying awake. Everything was a dream
.

My mama was talking to me this time. I didn't know if I was a little girl, or if it was now, or if she was talking to me before I was born or from heaven
.

“Someday we'll all be together again,” she was saying. “Then you'll know your papa and what a fine man he was. We'll get our Tear Drop back then, and we'll all be together. But we may have to wait a little while 'cause we don't know where he's gone. . . .”

I saw my mama's face, smiling and laughing. I
tried to cry, but I couldn't make a sound. But my heart wanted to cry for love of her. But now it was my mama crying in my dream. And seeing her cry made me so sad it overwhelmed me in grief, but I still couldn't cry, though I wanted to because the whole world seemed so sad that it must have made even God want to cry
.

Slowly my mama's laughing, crying, sad face faded
.

Maybe God was crying, I thought. And then I felt that someone was nearby my bed. I tried to open my eyes, but all I could see was a head lying against my arm and long blond hair, and whoever it was was crying and praying. I don't know if I was dreaming or if it was real
.

“Oh, God,” I heard her say, “please don't let her die.”

And then she wept. I didn't know if I was dreaming, or maybe I was dying. Was this what dying felt like . . . like a dream, where people and images came and went but where you couldn't make a sound, couldn't even cry when you wanted to for the sadness of it all
.

Then I heard rain . . . hard rain pouring down on the roof somewhere above me. God was crying, just like I thought. Everybody was crying. The whole world was sad because there was pain and aloneness and grief everywhere
.

I felt the sadness in my dream-heart. But I couldn't cry
.

Was God crying because He couldn't answer the
prayer, because He couldn't keep me alive? Was I drifting somewhere between the worlds of life and death, between God's world and this world of people and beds and tears and prayers and sadness?

Still the teardrops fell from heaven, still the sky poured down its sorrow out of God's eyes . . . and still God wept because the world was sad and even He couldn't wake me up
.

Another awaking came
.

Was it a day later . . . an hour later? Had a night passed, or a whole day?

I opened my eyes. A beam of sunlight reflecting off the wall opposite the window was
too
bright and quickly I shut my eyes. The dreamy haziness was gone. I was aware of actual light and dark and shadows and shapes
.

I moaned, then was surprised to hear my own voice
.

“. . . thirsty . . . water
. . .
”

“Mayme!” Katie shrieked. Steps ran across the room. The next instant I was smothered in kisses. “Are . . . are you . . . are you really there, Mayme?” she asked
.

“What?” I tried to say, but my voice came out as a dry croak. “What . . . what do . . . you mean?”

“Oh, you are awake! Let me get you some water!”

She dashed across the room and returned and sat down beside me on the bed. She lifted and propped me up, then held the glass to my mouth
.

“Drink, Mayme . . . drink as much as you can.
You need lots of water.”

My throat hurt to swallow, but I did as she said and managed to get almost the whole glass down
.

“Have you been there all night?” I asked. “I thought I heard . . . wasn't Josepha sitting there too . . . was it raining?”

“We've all been sitting with you, Mayme,” said Katie. “Sitting and praying and trying to get you to drink in your sleep. The doctor said you needed water, but we could hardly get you to drink a drop. You were too delirious, and yes, there was a big rainstorm one night.”

“The doctor was here during the night too?”

“During the night . . . he's been here three times.”

“How long have I been asleep?”

“Mayme, you've been lying in bed nine days.”

“Nine days!”

“We thought you were going to die. Oh, Mayme, I was so frightened!”

The others downstairs must have heard our voices because I now heard footsteps running up the stairs. Within seconds everybody poured into the room—Papa, Jeremiah, Uncle Ward, Henry, and finally a few seconds later, puffing from the hurried climb, Josepha
.

“Hey, little girl!” said Papa. “Welcome back to the world. We thought we were going to lose you!”