XI THE WOMAN’S AWAKENING

IT was upon a momentary impulse that Arthur Brent had suggested to Dorothy that she should help him in the battle with pestilence which lay before him. As a physician he had been accustomed to practise his profession not in the ordinary, perfunctory way, and not for gain, but in the spirit of a crusader combating disease as the arch enemy of humanity, and partly too for the joy of conquering so merciless a foe. His first thought in this case therefore had been to call to his aid the best assistance available. His chief difficulty, he clearly foresaw, would be in getting his measures intelligently carried out. He must secure the accurate, prompt and intelligent execution of his directions, whether for the administration of medicines prescribed or for hygienic measures ordered. The ignorance, the prejudice, and the inert carelessness of the negroes, he felt, would be his mightiest and wiliest foes in this, and there could be no abler adjutant for this purpose than Dorothy, with her quick wit, her scrupulous conscientiousness and her habit of compelling exact and instant obedience to all her commands. So he had thought first of calling upon Dorothy for help. But when she had so promptly responded, he began to feel that he had made a mistake. The physician in him, and the crusader too, sanctioned and approved the use of the best means available for the accomplishment of his high purpose. But the man in him, the friend, the affectionate protector, protested against such an exposure of the child to dreadful danger.

When he reflected upon the matter and thought of the peril; when he conjured up a picture of dear little Dorothy stricken and perhaps dead in a service of humanity to which no duty called her, and to which she had been induced only by her loyalty to him, he shrank back in horror from the program he had laid out.

Yet he knew that he could not easily undo what he had done. There was a child side to Dorothy, and it was that which usually presented itself to his mind when he thought of her. But there was a strong woman side to her also, as he very well knew, and over that he had established no influence or control. He had won the love of the child. He had not yet won the love of the woman. He realized that it was the masterful, woman side of her nature that he had called into activity in this matter. Now that the heroism of the brave woman’s soul was enlisted, he knew that he could not easily bid it turn back.

Yet something might be done by adroit management, and he resolved upon that. After breakfast he sent for Dorothy and said, lightly:

“I’m glad I have taught you to handle drugs skilfully, Dorothy. I shall need certain medicines frequently in this conflict. They are our ammunition for the battle, and we must have them always ready. I’m going to write some prescriptions for you to fill. I want you to spend today and tomorrow in the laboratory preparing them. One of them will tax your skill a good deal. It may take you several days to get it ready. It involves some very careful chemical processes—for you must first manufacture a part of your chemicals out of their raw materials. I’ll write detailed instructions for that, but you may fail half a dozen times before you succeed. You must be patient and you’ll get it right. You always do in the end. Then there’s another thing I want you to do for me. I’m going to burn all the clothing, bedding and so forth at the quarters. I’ll make each of the well negroes put on the freshest clothing he has before removing to the sanitary camp, and I’ll burn all the rest. I sent Dick early this morning to the Court House, telling Moses to send me all the blankets and all the cloth he has of every kind, from calico and osnaburgs to heavy woollen goods, and I’ve written to Richmond for more. We must clothe the negroes anew—men, women and children. So I want you to get together all your seamstresses—every woman on the plantation indeed who can sew even a little bit—and set them all at work making clothes. I’ve cleared out the prize barn for the purpose, and the men are now laying a rough floor in it and putting up some tables on which you and Aunt Polly can ‘cut out’—that’s what you call it, isn’t it?”

“Cousin Arthur,” said the girl, looking at him with something of reproach in her great, dark blue eyes, “I’ll do all this of course, and everything else that you want done. But please, Cousin Arthur, don’t tell lies to me, even indirectly. I couldn’t stand that from you.”

“What do you mean, child?”

“Oh, you have made up your mind to keep me busy with all these things so that I shall not go into your hospital to serve as a nurse. I’ll do these things for you, but I’ll do the nursing too. So please let us be good friends and please don’t try to play tricks.”

The young man was astonished and abashed. Under ordinary circumstances he might truthfully have pleaded that the work he was thus laying out for her was really and pressingly necessary. But Dorothy anticipated him in that.

“Don’t tell me that these things are necessary, Cousin Arthur. I know that perfectly well. But you know that I am not necessary to them—except so far as the prescriptions are concerned. Aunt Polly can direct the clothes making better than I can, and her maid, Jane, is almost as good. So after I compound the prescriptions I shall go to my duty at the hospital. I don’t think I like you very well today, Cousin Arthur, and I’ll not like you at all if you go on trying to make up things to keep me busy, away from the sick people. If you do that again I’ll stop calling you ‘Cousin Arthur’ and you’ll be just ‘Dr. Brent’ to me.”

“Please don’t do that, Dorothy,” he said very pleadingly. “I only meant—”

“Oh, I know what you meant,” she interrupted. “But you shouldn’t treat me in that way. I won’t call you ‘Dr. Brent,’ unless you do that sort of thing again, and if you let me do my duty without trying to play tricks, I’ll go on liking you just as much as ever.”

“Thank you, Dorothy,” he replied with fervor. “You must forgive me, please. I didn’t want to expose you to this danger—that was all.”

“Oh, I understand all that,” she quickly responded. “But it wasn’t treating me quite fairly—and you know I hate unfairness. And—why shouldn’t I be exposed to the danger if I can do any good? Even if the worst should happen—even if I should take the fever and die, after saving some of these poor creatures’ lives, could you or anybody have made a better use of a girl like me than that?”

Arthur looked at the child earnestly, but the child was no longer there. The eyes that gazed into his were those of a woman!