Sunny Slopes

by Ethel Hueston

  CHAPTER X

  WHERE HEALTH BEGINS

  In a little white cottage tent, at the end of a long row of minutelysimilar, little white cottage tents, sat David and Carol in the earlyevening of a day in May, looking wistfully out at the wide sweep ofgray mesa land, reaching miles away to the mountains, blue and solemnin the distance.

  "Do--do you feel better yet, David?" Carol asked at last, desperatelydetermined to break the menacing silence.

  David drew his breath. "I can't seem to notice any difference yet," hereplied honestly. "It doesn't look much like Missouri, does it?"

  "It is pretty,--very pretty," she said resolutely.

  "Carol, be a good Presbyterian and tell the truth. Do you wish you hadgone home, to green and grassy Iowa?"

  "David Duke, I am at home, and here is where I want to be and no placeelse in the world. It is big and bleak and bare, but-- You are goingto get well, aren't you, David?"

  "Of course I am, but give me time. Even Miracle Land can't transformweakness to health in two hours."

  "I must go over to the office. Mrs. Hartley said she wanted to give mesome instructions."

  Carol rose quickly and stepped outside the cottage.

  Crossing the mesa she met three men who stopped her with a gesture.They were of sadly similar appearance, tall, thin, shoulders stooped,hair dull and lusterless, eyes dry and bright. Carol thought at firstthey were brothers, and so they were,--brothers in the grip of thegreat white plague.

  "Are you a lunger?" ejaculated one of them in astonishment, noting thelight in her eyes and the flush in her cheeks.

  "A--lunger?"

  "Yes,--have you got the bugs?"

  "The bugs!"

  "Say, are you chasing the cure?"

  "Of course not," interrupted the oldest of the three impatiently."There's nothing the matter with her, except that she's a lunger'swife. Your husband is the minister from St. Louis, isn't he?"

  "Yes,--I am Mrs. Duke."

  "I am Thompson. I used to be a medical missionary in the Ozarks. Howis your husband?"

  "Oh, he is doing nicely," she said brightly,--the brightness assumed tohide the fear in her heart that some day David might look like that.

  Thompson laughed disagreeably. "Sure, they always do nicely at first.But when the bugs get 'em, they're gone. They think they're better,they say they are getting well,--God!"

  Carol looked at him with questioning reproach in the shadowed eyes."It does not hurt us to hope, at least," she said gently. "It does noharm, and it makes us happier."

  "Oh, yes," came the bitter answer. "Sure it does. But wait a fewyears. Bugs eat hope and happiness as well as lungs."

  Carol quivered. "You make me afraid," she said.

  "Thompson is an old croak," interrupted one of the younger men, smilingencouragement. "Don't waste your time on him,--talk to me. He is sucha grouch that he gives the bugs a regular bed to sleep in. He'd havebeen well years ago if he hadn't been such a chronic kicker. Cheer up,Mrs. Duke. Of course your husband will get along. Got it right at thestart, didn't you?"

  "Oh, yes, right at the very start."

  "That's good. Most people fool around too long and then it's too late,and all their own fault. Sure, your husband is all right. It's toobad Thompson can't die, isn't it? He's got too mean a disposition tokeep on living with white folks."

  "Oh, I shouldn't say that," disclaimed Carol quickly. "He--he is justnot quite like the people I have known. I didn't know how to take him.He was only joking of course." She smiled forgivingly at him, andThompson had the grace to flush a little.

  "I am Jimmy Jones," said the second man. "I was a bartender in littleold Chi. Far cry from a missionary to a bartender, but I'll take mychances on Paradise with Thompson any day."

  "A--a bartender." Carol rubbed her slender fingers in bewilderment.

  "I am Arnold Barrows, formerly a Latin professor. _Amo, mas, mat,_"said the third man suddenly. "I am looking for my Paradise right hereon earth, and I am sorry you are married. My idea of Paradise is agirl like you and a man like me, and everything else go hang."

  Carol drew herself up as though poised for flight, a startled birdtaking wing.

  Thompson and Jones laughed at her horrified face, but the professormaintained his solemn gravity.

  "He is just a fool," said the bartender encouragingly. "Don't botherabout him. It is not you in particular, he is nuts on all the girls.Cheer up. We're not so bad as we sound. I have a cottage near you.Tell the parson I'll be in to-morrow to give him the latest light onthe bonfires in perdition. I know all about them. Tell him we'llorganize a combination prayer-meeting; he can lead the prayer and I'llgive advanced lessons in bunny-hugs and fancy-fizzes."

  "Good night,--good night,--good night," gasped Carol.

  Forgetting her errand to the office, she rushed back to David, tosafety, to the sheltering folds of the little white cottage tent.

  He questioned her curiously about her experience, and although shetried to evade the harsher points, he drew every word from herreluctant lips.

  "Lunger,--and bugs,--and chasers,--it doesn't sound nice, David."

  "But maybe it is the best thing after all. We are not used to it yet,but I suppose it is better for them to take it lightly and laugh and befunny about it. They have to spend a lifetime with the specter, youknow,--maybe the joking takes away some of the grimness."

  Carol shivered a little.

  "Aren't you going to the office?"

  "No, I am not. If Mrs. Hartley wants to see me, she can come here. Iam scared, honestly. Let's do something. Let's go to bed, David."

  It was a two-roomed cottage, a thin canvas wall separating the rooms.There were window-flaps on every side, and conscientiously Carol leftthem every one upraised, although she had goose-flesh every time sheglanced into the black wall of darkness outside the circle of theirlights, a wall only punctuated by the yellow rays of light here andthere, where the more riotous guests of the institution weredissipating up to the wicked hour of nine o'clock.

  "Good night, David,--you will call me if you want anything, won't you?"And Carol leaped into bed, desperately afraid a lizard, or a scorpionor a centipede might lie beneath in wait for unwary pink toes once theguarding lights were out.

  This was the land where health began,--the land of pure light air, ofclear and penetrating sunshine, the land of ruddy cheeks and boundingblood. This was the land which would bring color back to the pale faceof David, would restore the vigor to his step, the ring to his voice.It was the land where health began.

  She must love it, she would love it, she did love it. It was a rich,beautiful, gracious land,--gray, sandy, barren, but green with promiseto Carol and to David, as it had been to thousands of others who camethat way with a burden of weakness buoyed by hope.

  A shrill shriek sounded outside the tent,--a dangerous rustling in thesand, a crinkling of dead leaves in the corners of the steps, a ring, aroar, a wild tumult. Something whirled to the floor in David's room,papers rattled, curtains flapped, and there was a metallic patter onthe uncarpeted floor of the tent. Carol gave an indistinct murmur offear and burrowed beneath the covers.

  It was David who threw back the blankets and turned on the lights.Just a sand-storm, that was all,--a common sand-storm, without whichNew Mexico might be almost any other place on earth. David's Bible hadbeen whirled from the window-ledge, and fine sand was piling in throughthe screens.

  Carol withdrew from the covers most courageously when she heard thecomforting click of the electric switch, and the reassuring squeak ofDavid's feet on the floor of the room.

  "Everything's all right," he called to her. "Don't get scared. Willyou help me put these flaps down?"

  Carol leaped from her bed at that, and ran to lower the windows. Thenshe sat by David's side while the storm raged outside, roaring andpiling sand against the little tent.

  After that, to bed once more, still determinedly in love with the landof health
, and praying fervently for morning.

  Soon David's heavy breathing proclaimed him sound asleep. But sleepwould not come to Carol. She gazed as one hypnotized into the starrybrightness of the black sky as she could see it through the windowbeside her. How ominously dark it was. Softly she slipped out of bedand lowered the flaps of the window. She did not like that darkness.After the storm, David had insisted the windows must be openedagain,--that was the first law of lungers and chasers.

  She was cold when she got back into bed, for the chill of the mountainnights was new to her. And an hour later, when she was almost dozing,footsteps prowled about the tent, loitering in the leaves outside herwestern window. David was sleeping, she must not interfere with amoment of his restoring rest. She clasped her hands beneath thecovers, and moistened her feverish lips. If it were an Indian lurkingthere, his deadly tomahawk upraised, she prayed he might strike thefatal blow at once. But the steps passed, and she climbed on her kneesand lowered the flaps on the side where the steps sounded.

  Later, the sudden tinkle of a bell across the grounds startled her intositting posture. No, it wasn't David, after all,--somebody else,--someother woman's David, likely, ringing for the nurse. Carol sighed. Howcould David get well and strong out here, with all these other sickones to wring his heart with pity? Were the doctors surely right,--wasthis the land of health?

  Again footsteps approached the tent, stirring up the dry sand, andagain Carol held her breath until they had passed. Then she grimlyclosed the windows on the third side of her room, and smiled to herselfas she thought, "I'll get them up again before David is awake."

  But she crept into bed and slept at last.

  Early, very early, she was awakened by the sunlight pouring upon theflaps at the windows. It was five o'clock, and very cold. Carolwrapped a blanket about her and peeked in upon her husband.

  "Good morning," she greeted him brightly. "Isn't it lovely and bright?How is my nice old boy? Nearly well?"

  "Just fine. How did you sleep?"

  "Like a top," she declared.

  "Were you afraid?"

  "Um, not exactly," she denied, glancing at him with sudden suspicion.

  "Did the wind blow all your flaps down?"

  "How did you know?"

  "Oh, I was up long ago looking in on you. We'll get a room over in theMain Building to-day. It costs more, but the accommodations are somuch better. We are directly on the path from the street, so we hearevery passing footstep."

  Carol blushed. "I am not afraid," she insisted.

  "We'll get a room just the same. It will be easier for you all the wayaround."

  Carol flung open the door and gazed out upon the land of health. Thelong desolate mesa land stretched far away to the mountains, nowshowing pink and rosy in the early sunshine. The little white tentsabout them were as suggestively pitiful as before. There were notrees, no flowers, no carpeting grass, to brighten the desolation.

  Bare, bleak, sandy slopes reached to the mountains on every side.David sat up in bed and looked out with her.

  "Just a long bare slope of sand, isn't it?" she whispered. "Sand andcactus,--no roses blooming here upon the sandy slopes."

  "Yes, just sandy slopes to the mountains,--but Carol, they aresunny,--bare and bleak, but still they are sunny for us. Let's notlose sight of that."