Argosy All-Story Weekly, July 7, 1928 — page 130: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

270 “ By all means, Mr. Tristram.” “Tt’s like this. Delirium in itself is considered rather lightly by most people. It’s not unusual for persons to talk and joke about one’s irrational utterances after an illness. But I want to ask you to let what we heard just now remain a secret between us, Mrs. Roberts. ““ Tf—well, if Hetty should recover, and should ask you what sort of things she said in her delirium, I wish you would avoid letting her know that she called my name or talked about me. I think it would embarrass her seriously, and I’m really thinking of her peace of mind as well as my own. “The things she said were too— perhaps you'll appreciate what I mean it 1 say they were too intimate, too significant.” ““T understand par fecalss, Mr. ‘Tris- tram. You can rely on me to keep the secret. We both know Hetty, I think, and we know that she’d rather have her tongue torn out than say the things that we heard.” Reuel met Vincent after leaving the apartment. “ Did she recognize you?” asked the doctor. For a moment only. ill, indeed.” ‘“T hope she didn’t upset you, Tris- tram. Fever patients are often quite outrageous and shocking in their rav- ings.’ “Shocking, of course,” Reuel agreed with a shrug. “ But that’s to be ex- pected. It was all very incoherent and meaningless. You'll keep me posted, of course. I’d like to have some one call me, if—” “> be sure,’ agreed the doctor, and went on his way to the Roberts apartment. Reuel hurried to his room, hoping that no one would intercept him, as he did not feel like talking, but Hubert, with the honest familiarity of friend- ship, had entered in his absence and was waiting for him. She’s very ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. “I hear the little filly is bad off, Reuel,” said the big fellow plaintively. “Doc Vincent was sent for out to Franklin, and he wouldn’t go; said he wouldn't leave the house to-night, on account o’ Hetty.” “She is bad off, Hubert! Why in Heaven's name will poor people leave a fairly tolerable, comfortable home in a civilized community, where there’s work to be had in mills and business places, and travel halfway across the continent into a savage wilderness? What hardships l’ve had here I might have avoided, but these penniless settlers are helpless—at the mercy of wind and weather, to say nothing of devilish human hyenas. “J guess my nerves are unstrung, Hubert; I guess I’ve seen too much of human kind out here. The emigration agents in the East have been forced to admit that the death rate among the settlers is high. They ascribe it to lack of preparation for primitive conditions, and to the usual inroads of diseases like smallpox, dysentery, and the like. “They haven’t tallied up the deaths caused by broken hearts! You can’t tear a lily out of a shady garden by the roots, throw it out in a field of rank weeds, and expect it to live and grow!” ‘“ Hetty was sort of a little tiger lily,” mused Hubert, evidently disposed to revise Reuel’s imagery into accurate metaphor, “ but she neyer was born to grow among burdocks and thistles, no- how. I tell you, Reuel, I’d ’a’ married that little girl in a minute if she’d had me.” A large tear trickled down the big fellow’s “rough cheek into his shaggy beard, and the sight of it made Reuel take a quick breath and swallow hard. “Why couldn’t she see that there was happiness for her that way?” he groaned. “Kansas has ruined my happiness, Hubert. Last fall I was a carefree, optimistic, cheerful damned fool in Washington. In these few months I’ve become a hopeless cynic, the rankest kind of a pessimist; I don’t Gomichboo S (F@)