CHAPTER NINETEEN
Lead, Kindly Light, Amid The Encirc’ling Gloom....
The babies were hanging on to life; and though small, they were making their voices heard, protesting in long wails at having been drawn into the world too soon. But as the week went on, worry rose. Emily’s weight had dropped to just a little more than two pounds. The bishop called for a ward-wide fast in behalf of Roger’s and Francie’s babies. Family and friends went up to the Manti Temple to ask the Lord for His help.
Grandpa took his axe, strode down to the offending box elder tree, and, while we looked on, chopped it down, declaring fiercely, “I don’t care whose tree it is! It’s coming down!”
I felt some relief at that. Grandpa was blaming things on the tree.
For the first time in our lives, Leatrice and I did not confide in each other. I didn’t want to talk about the awful events; and she apparently didn’t either.
Ben Gracey had repaired the front end of Roger’s car; so that part was all right. Now if the babies would just start to smile, and coo, and grow. Instead, they cried most of the time, did not want to eat, and were not thriving as they should.
Aunt Francie spent every day at the hospital. Roger joined her before and after work. They would stand outside the nursery window, watching as the babies fussed and wailed; or don masks and go in, and lift them from their beds. A rocking chair was put in the nursery so Aunt Francie could hold both babies in her arms and rock them. It was only then that they became calm.
Grandma was at the hospital a good deal of the time, lending comfort and support. Roger’s mother came down from Salt Lake.
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Mamma comes briskly into my room one morning and says that she and Daddy, and Irene are going over to the hospital to see the babies. “Would you like to go with us, Beth?”
I don’t want to go. I’m too ashamed. The babies are not thriving; and it is all my fault — or most of it. Almost everything bad that happened that summer had been my fault. Oh, Leatrice had done some of it; and the mean dogs had killed the rabbits. But I was guilty of just about everything else: I’d carelessly pushed Miss Biggs’ violet out the window; and it had been my idea to sit down on the ditch bank and drink the milk we were supposed to carry home; and I had talked Leatrice into sneaking into Grandma’s kitchen, borrowing a couple of spoons, tiptoeing into the milk house and skimming the cream off the pans of milk and eating it; and I had done most of the teasing of ‘ol Titty-Poo.
That must be why Heavenly Father hadn’t answered any of my prayers — because I was so bad. Daddy had a pet name for me — Honey Bee. But I was pretty sure he would never call me that again.
When Mamma asks if I want to go with them, I shake my head.
“Well, then, get up,” Mamma says briskly. “Don’t loll in bed all day.”
I get up, but I don’t get dressed. I come downstairs and creep into a corner of the sofa, curled up as small as I can manage.
Great-Aunt Salina May Roundtree Gillis comes marching into the room. She is going along to see the babies.
“Great-Granny’s liver dumplings!” she exclaims. “Why are you moping around like that, child? Don’t you know that God’s in His heaven, and all’s right with the world?”
I mumble something I hope she won’t hear. “I don’t believe it.”
But the old lady has sharp ears. “What do you mean, you ‘don’t believe it’?” Her eyebrows rise up into her hair, and she says, “Well! God believes in you!”
The family leaves. The day has turned chilly, with no ray of sunshine. I sit there shivering in my thin pajamas the entire hour-and-a-half that my folks are gone. Returning, Daddy lifts me off the sofa, gives me a little spat, and says, “Up you go and get yourself dressed.”
As I go upstairs I hear Mamma remark, “I wonder what’s ailing those babies, besides being premature. They just don’t act happy.”
I do not obey Daddy’s order to get dressed. Instead, still in my pajamas, I crawl into the far, chilly corner of the room and sit there shivering. I suppose I had some idea that if I suffered enough it might help to pay for my sins. Finally, Mamma comes in briskly and says, “That’s enough of this foolishness, Beth. Get dressed — now!” So I obey Mamma. But I don’t feel very well.
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I was ill that night. Perhaps it was a combination of little food, scant sleep, sitting in the cold all of that day — and guilt. I woke in the night feeling extremely hot. I kicked all my covers off, but no sooner began to doze again than I found I was freezing. Mamma found me the next morning curled up in a ball, whimpering. She fetched another blanket and tucked it around me. Then she called the doctor.
Doctor/Bishop Lindblum — dear man! He was always there when we needed him — took my temperature, looked down my throat, and said I had the flu. Mamma was to keep me warm and give me lots of liquids.
I was near delirium a lot of the time; but of some things I am sure: Mamma coming in to feed me warm broth and cold drinks, passing cool cloths over my feverish forehead and cheeks; someone sitting beside me all night when I was the sickest, and my finding when I woke in the morning that the someone was Daddy.
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One night, somebody pattered into my room with little, quick, hesitant steps and bent over me, her hair tickling my cheek. Somebody whispered, “Bethy,” and crawled into bed beside me and put her arms around me; and it was Leatrice. I relaxed in the comfort of my best friend and slept dreamlessly.
Sometime early in the morning, someone came and got Leatrice. When I woke, she was gone. But in the comfort of her arms, my sleep had been healing. I felt well enough to sit up. Daddy carried me downstairs and set me on the sofa, a pillow at my back; and all that day I was treated like a queen.
Daddy read to me from The Wizard Of Oz, the part I liked best, where Dorothy, and the Tin Woodman, and the Scarecrow, and the Lion all get their wishes granted. Mamma brought me orange juice to sip. And Irene, Irene!, peddled all the way downtown on her bike to Wally’s drug store and brought back a cool, malted milk in a big paper cup for me. Emotion overcame me. I threw my arms around Irene’s neck and told her I loved her. She hugged me in turn, saying, “I love you, too, Bethy.”
It seemed like a miracle in the wilderness that my family should love me when I was so wicked.
As Lambs to His Fold Page 20