Crestlands: A Centennial Story of Cane Ridge

  CHAPTER XXXIV.

  THE CUP OF COLD WATER

  In August of that same summer, Hiram Gilcrest, the man of strong nerveand iron constitution, whose boast it had been that he had never knowna day's real sickness, was stricken down with disease, and after a fewdays of wasting illness, he was muttering in the delirium of typhusfever.

  He had never forgiven his daughter and her husband their runawaymarriage. True, since the partial reconciliation of five years before,which had removed the ban of total non-communication between the twohouseholds, Betsy had occasionally visited her mother; but always, whenat Oaklands, her father's manner, cold, distant, formal, had made herfeel that not as a child of the house, nor even as an honored guest,but merely as a stranger, would she ever again be received in the homeof her childhood. This was a great sorrow to her, the one dark cloud inthe otherwise serene sky of her married happiness; and Logan, althoughhe cared little on his own account for the cold looks and haughtydemeanor of his father-in-law, loved his young wife too tenderly not tosorrow at her sorrow.

  Now that Major Gilcrest was ill, however, Abner and Betty forgot allhis harsh injustice, and hurried to the bedside where he lay battlingfor life against the fire that filled his veins, sapped his strengthand consumed his flesh. Mason Rogers, too, although he and Gilcrest hadnot spoken to each other since their stormy interview eight yearsbefore, now hearing of his old friend's illness, forgot all harsh wordsand thoughts, and hurried to Oaklands to offer assistance. OfGilcrest's six children, only Betsy and Matthew, the first-born and theyoungest, were there. Silas and Philip were in Massachusetts, studentsat Cambridge; John Calvin and Martin Luther, who had been among thefirst of those brave Kentucky volunteers to march to the defense of theterritory of Indiana against the depredations of Tecumseh and theProphet, were now with General Harrison at Vincennes.

  During the day, Betsy, who had left her three little children in thecharge of the negress Marthy, shared with Aunt Dilsey the care of thesick man; and during the night watch Abner was his most constantattendant. Although Gilcrest was too delirious to recognize any one, itsoon came to pass that no one else could influence him as could hisonce despised son-in-law; for poor Mrs. Gilcrest could not bear thesight of her husband's sufferings, and was hardly ever allowed to enterthe room.

  All that the medical erudition of the time prescribed was done for thepatient. He was bled twice a week, and smothered in blankets; he waspoulticed and plastered, blistered and fomented; he was dosed withconcoctions of fever-wort, boneset, burdock, pokeberry, mullein root,and other medicaments bitter of taste and vile of smell; and kept hot,weak, and miserable generally. Our forbears are represented to thisgeneration as a brave, vigorous and healthy race; and no wonder, fordisease in that heroic age was simply a question of the "survival ofthe fittest;" and the stringent remedies prescribed under the olddispensation were well calculated to eliminate all but the strongestmembers of the race.

  August and September passed, and still the master of Oaklands layhelpless, while fever raged in his gaunt frame with unrelentingviolence. One thing was constantly denied him, fresh, cold water;although he pleaded with such pitiful agony that his nurses wept whenthey refused him. In delirium he talked of the old spring at hisfar-away childhood home--of the babbling music of the water as itsparkled over its pebbly bed and trickled down the rocky hillside--andagain and again he pleaded for one draught of its reviving freshness."Water! water!" was the burden of his plaint from morn till night, andfrom night till morn; and when too weak to speak, his hollow, bloodshoteyes still begged for water.

  Finally he was given up to die. "He can not last through the night,"was the verdict of the two physicians to the mourning ones around thebedside. His fainting wife was carried from the room; and his daughter,not able to endure the sight of his dying agonies, allowed her husbandto lead her to her old room, where she threw herself across her bed ina paroxysm of grief. "Oh, father, father, my poor, dear old father!"she wailed, "if only you could speak to me again before you die, andtell me that you forgive me and love me. And my brothers, so far away!Oh, if you could be with us in this dark hour! It is so hard, so hard!"

  The doctors had left. Aunt Dilsey was upstairs in attendance upon herstricken mistress. The night wore on, and when the gray dawn was justbeginning to creep into the chamber where Hiram Gilcrest layunconscious and scarcely breathing, Mason Rogers and John Trabue, wornout with their long night's vigil, stole into an adjoining room tosnatch an hour's rest. Only Abner Logan and William Bledsoe were leftin attendance upon the dying man. Presently he opened his eyes andfixed his gaze on Abner.

  "Do you know me, Mr. Gilcrest?" asked Logan, tenderly touching theshrunken, parched hands.

  "Water! water!" was the reply; "for God's sake give me water! Havemercy, and let me have one drop before I die!"

  "You shall have it, sir," said Abner, his eyes filling. Then, to anegro boy who was just entering the room, he cried, "Run quickly to thespring-house, and fetch a bucket of water."

  "Are you not rash, Logan?" whispered Bledsoe. "You know the doctorshave all along forbidden that."

  "But they have pronounced him dying; in any case the water can make nodifference, and I can not resist his plea any longer."

  The water was brought, and Abner gave the sick man one sip, which wasall he would take. To his fever-parched palate the water tasted a viledraught; and he turned from it in loathing and despair. With a tiny mopLogan then moistened the parched mouth with a solution of slippery elm.Presently the moan for water was again uttered, and now the feveredpalate at last began to feel its coolness. With unnatural strength heseized the gourd, and drained its contents. "Bless you, my boy!" heexclaimed faintly; then fell back on his pillow exhausted, and droppedimmediately into a deep sleep.

  "He's gone!" exclaimed Bledsoe, as he saw the perspiration gatheringupon his brow. "He will never wake from this stupor," and again thesorrowing family were summoned. The solemnity of death reigned in thechamber, where the watchers restrained their weeping, and waited inawe-struck silence the approach of man's last grim foe.

  "He may live," Abner said at last as the moments passed and Gilcrestbreathed on in quiet slumber.

  "If he does," responded Bledsoe, "that water will have saved him."

  Gilcrest slept on. Dawn gave place to full day, morning glided intoafternoon. Late in the evening he awoke of his own accord, weak as anew-born babe, but with the fever gone and the light of reason oncemore in his sunken eyes.

  During the long weeks of convalescence that followed, while his bodywas slowly regaining vigor, his heart, too, was gradually expandinginto a new spiritual life. He had ample time for reflection as he satpropped with pillows in the cushioned chair in his quiet room; and inthose long hours of solitude and feeble helplessness, he first began tofeel the need of a religion more healing and cheering than that whichshowed God only as an avenger, stern, partial and dictatorial.Gradually, and as naturally as a plant turns to the sun, his mindturned to that all-loving Father who, being "touched with a feeling forour infirmities," ever tempers his righteous judgments with tenderestmercy, and is ever yearning to deliver all from the penalty of sin.