The Prodigal Daughter CHAPTER 8.
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On the next morning, when the physician came, he found the child worse, instead of better. The medicine he had prescribed, failed entirely in the effect he had anticipated. Her fever was still high, her throat very sore and inflamed, and her skin, in many places, as red as scarlet. Whether the disease were small pox, measles, or scarlet fever, he could not tell, and was much perplexed what course to pursue. The child labored much in breathing, and complained of great oppression in the chest. He prescribed, and called again in the evening to find his patient a great deal worse. Her throat had become exceedingly painful; and on looking into it, he found it not only highly inflamed, but in many places beginning to ulcerate and turn black. The mother was greatly distressed, and even the father was beginning to exhibit the existence of some few remains of humanity.
On the next day hope began to fail in the mother's heart, and the physician saw little to encourage her. Up to this time, every symptom had continued hourly, more and more aggravated. The action of medicine had produced not a single favorable result. It was with great difficulty that the sufferer could swallow even a drop of water. Her throat and tongue were black and putrid, and her skin continued to be of a scarlet hue.
On the evening of the eighth day after she was taken sick, the father, and mother, and brother, were gathered around little Alice to see her die. Though suffering greatly, she was perfectly sensible; but the disease had rendered her so completely blind, that she could distinguish no one by sight.
Mrs. Anderson's mind had been gradually more and more convinced, as the disease grew worse, that her child must die soon. And the stronger this conviction took hold of her mind, the less she could conceive how she would possibly be able to bear the loss. Still, she had endeavored to school her mind to resignation, and to look upward to God for strength. On this evening, while sitting beside the bed, she sobbed out, unable to restrain her feelings.
"O mother, don't cry about me!" said the dying child, turning her face towards her parent, in which was an expression of deep sympathy and concern.
The mother answered not; but there was a struggle within, a violent struggle, when the expression of her countenance grew calmer, but fixed and almost vacant. She had resolved, for the sake of her child, to give no audible token of grief. Suddenly, little Alice startled forward, stretched out her hands, and rolled her vacant eyes staringly about the room — then she fell back in a slight convulsion upon the bed. The mother knew that the hour was come, and she knelt by the bedside of her dying child, as still as death — while the large tears trickled through the fingers that concealed her face.
"Mother," said the sufferer, "I can't see you, but if you can see me, kiss me."
A sudden, but quickly stifled, convulsive sob agitated the mother's bosom, as she bent over to kiss the dear lips of her child, who was just falling beneath the sickle of the "reaper Death." The slender white arms of Alice were thrown about her mother's neck and firmly clasped for a few moments — then slowly withdrawn, when, with a long sigh, she turned her face away.
For nearly half an hour, she lay with her face turned to the wall, the mother, the while kneeling by the bedside, the father standing near, much agitated, and James seated upon the foot of the bed, making no effort to conceal, or wipe away the tears which were rolling down his young cheeks.
"Mother, mother — what makes my heart jump about so?" suddenly cried the dying one, rolling her sightless eyes wildly. "O I shall die, if I can't get breath? Open the windows! Fan me! take off the sheets! oh! oh! oh!"
While Alice in an alarmed tone was uttering rapidly these words, which passed like electricity through the nerves of father, mother, and brother — the door of the room softly opened, and an old man, the same who had lingered near the door on the evening Alice was discovered to be so ill, stole quietly in, accompanied by an elderly woman, respectably attired. Mrs. Anderson did not observe them — she was too much absorbed in the one dear object before her.
The paroxysm that had seized Alice soon subsided, and she again lay motionless, almost gasping for breath. The strangers and intruders, seated themselves in a far corner of the room, as if unwilling to break the spell that enrapt the senses of all. In the course of a little while, Alice again roused up.
"Mother," she said, in an altered voice, "let me kiss you before I go to sleep. I am going to sleep, mother, and I am sure it will be a good sleep; and then I shall be well again." As her mother bent over her, the tears fell fast upon the face of the child, who resumed, in a fainter tone:
"O mother, why do you cry so? But I know you are sick — sick and in pain, and father scolds so, and calls you such ugly names; and you have got no mother with you like I have, to be good to you, and help you when you are sick. But don't cry, mother! It won't be always so sick — I am going to sleep now, good night."
And she did sleep — a sweeter sleep than had ever before locked her senses in forgetfulness. The death-struggle was slight, and quickly over.
At this moment, the female stranger, yet unnoticed by Mrs. Anderson, came eagerly forward, and catching her in her arms as she was about to sink to the floor, whispered a single word in her ear.
How the poor, bereaved, heart-broken mother listened eagerly.
"Alice!" murmured the stranger again.
"My mother, my own dear mother!" she almost shrieked, turning and hiding her face in that bosom which had so often pillowed it, before a breath of life had blown roughly upon her.
Half staggering forward, came the old man, the tears streaming down his cheeks. "Alice! Alice! my long lost child! Alice, speak to me — or my heart will break."
Mrs. Anderson looked up, there was a placid, heavenly smile upon her countenance.
"Dear father! you have sought your erring child at last," she said in a subdued tone, and again hid her face in her mother's bosom.
And thus were they reconciled, after long years of estrangement and sorrow.
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