XVIII
He had not been gone long enough for me to get back into the house-
Fonteette's--when I espied coming to me, in piteous haste from her home
around the corner, the young daughter of another neighbor. Her hair was
about her eyes and as she saw the physician had gone, she wrung her hands
and burst into violent weeping. I ran to her outside the gate, pointing
backward at Mrs. Fontenette's room, with entreating signs for quiet as she
called--"Oh, _where_ is he gone? Which way did he go?"
"I can't tell you, my dear girl!" I murmured. "I don't know! What is the
trouble?"
"My father!" she hoarsely whispered.
"My father's dying! dying in a raging delirium, and we can't hold him in
bed! O, come and help us!" She threw her hands above her head in wild
despair, and gnawed her fingers and lips and shook and writhed as she
gulped down her sobs, and laid hold of me and begged as though I had
refused.
I found her words true. It took four men to keep him down. I did not have
to stay to the end, and when I reached Fontenette's side again, was glad
to find I had been away but little over an hour.
I sent the old black woman home and to bed, and may have sat an hour more,
when she came back to tell us, that one of the children was very wakeful
and feverish.
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