第21章 DANIEL AND LITTLE DAN'L(2)
Many of those women thought him "a little off."Dora Lee, his niece, privately wondered if her uncle had his full allotment of understanding. He seemed much more at home with her little daughter than with herself, and Dora considered herself a very good business woman, with possibly an unusual endowment of common sense. She was such a good business woman that when she died suddenly she left her child with quite a sum in the bank, besides the house. Daniel did not hesitate for a moment.
He engaged Miss Sarah Dean for a housekeeper, and took the little girl (hardly more than a baby)to his own home. Dora had left a will, in which she appointed Daniel guardian in spite of her doubt concerning his measure of understanding. There was much comment in the village when Daniel took his little namesake to live in his lonely house on the terrace. "A man and an old maid to bring up that poor child!" they said. But Daniel called Dr. Trumbull to his support. "It is much better for that delicate child to be out of this village, which drains the south hill," Dr. Trumbull declared.
"That child needs pure air. It is hot enough in summer all around here, and hot enough at Daniel's, but the air is pure there."There was no gossip about Daniel and Miss Sarah Dean. Gossip would have seemed about as foolish concerning him and a dry blade of field-grass.
Sarah Dean looked like that. She wore rusty black gowns, and her gray-blond hair was swept curtain-wise over her ears on either side of her very thin, mildly severe wedge of a face. Sarah was a notable housekeeper and a good cook. She could make an endless variety of cakes and puddings and pies, and her biscuits were marvels. Daniel had long catered for himself, and a rasher of bacon, with an egg, suited him much better for supper than hot biscuits, preserves, and five kinds of cake. Still, he did not complain, and did not understand that Sarah's fare was not suitable for the child, until Dr. Trumbull told him so.
"Don't you let that child live on that kind of food if you want her to live at all," said Dr. Trumbull.
"Lord! what are the women made of, and the men they feed, for that matter? Why, Daniel, there are many people in this place, and hard-working people, too, who eat a quantity of food, yet don't get enough nourishment for a litter of kittens.""What shall I do?" asked Daniel in a puzzled way.
"Do? You can cook a beefsteak yourself, can't you? Sarah Dean would fry one as hard as sole-leather."
"Yes, I can cook a beefsteak real nice," said Daniel.
"Do it, then; and cook some chops, too, and plenty of eggs.""I don't exactly hanker after quite so much sweet stuff," said Daniel. "I wonder if Sarah's feelings will be hurt.""It is much better for feelings to be hurt than stomachs," declared Dr. Trumbull, "but Sarah's feelings will not be hurt. I know her. She is a wiry woman. Give her a knock and she springs back into place. Don't worry about her, Daniel."When Daniel went home that night he carried a juicy steak, and he cooked it, and he and little Dan'1had a square meal. Sarah refused the steak with a slight air of hauteur, but she behaved very well.
When she set away her untasted layer-cakes and pies and cookies, she eyed them somewhat anxiously.
Her standard of values seemed toppling before her mental vision. "They will starve to death if they live on such victuals as beefsteak, instead of good nourishing hot biscuits and cake," she thought.
After the supper dishes were cleared away she went into the sitting-room where Daniel Wise sat beside a window, waiting in a sort of stern patience for a whiff of air. It was a very close evening. The sun was red in the low west, but a heaving sea of mist was rising over the lowlands.
Sarah sat down opposite Daniel. "Close, ain't it?" said she. She began knitting her lace edging.
"Pretty close," replied Daniel. He spoke with an effect of forced politeness. Although he had such a horror of extreme heat, he was always chary of boldly expressing his mind concerning it, for he had a feeling that he might be guilty of blasphemy, since he regarded the weather as being due to an Almighty mandate. Therefore, although he suffered, he was extremely polite.
"It is awful up-stairs in little Dan'l's room," said Sarah. "I have got all the windows open except the one that's right on the bed, and I told her she needn't keep more than the sheet and one comfortable over her."Daniel looked anxious. "Children ain't ever over-come when they are in bed, in the house, are they?""Land, no! I never heard of such a thing. And, anyway, little Dan'l's so thin it ain't likely she feels the heat as much as some.""I hope she don't."
Daniel continued to sit hunched up on himself, gazing with a sort of mournful irritation out of the window upon the landscape over which the misty shadows vaguely wavered.
Sarah knitted. She could knit in the dark. After a while she rose and said she guessed she would go to bed, as to-morrow was her sweeping-day.
Sarah went, and Daniel sat alone.
Presently a little pale figure stole to him through the dusk -- the child, in her straight white night-gown, padding softly on tiny naked feet.
"Is that you, Dan'l?"
"Yes, Uncle Dan'l."
"Is it too hot to sleep up in your room?""I didn't feel so very hot, Uncle Dan'l, but skeet-ers were biting me, and a great big black thing just flew in my window!""A bat, most likely."
"A bat!" Little Dan'l shuddered. She began a little stifled wail. "I'm afeard of bats," she la-mented.
Daniel gathered the tiny creature up. "You can jest set here with Uncle Dan'l," said he. "It is jest a little cooler here, I guess. Once in a while there comes a little whiff of wind.""Won't any bats come?"