Maggie, a Girl of the Streets and Other New York Writings by Crane Stephen & Sante Lucy

Author:Crane, Stephen & Sante, Lucy [Crane, Stephen & Sante, Lucy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Classics, Historical
ISBN: 9780307769732
Amazon: 0307769739
Goodreads: 9938461
Publisher: Modern Library
Published: 1893-01-01T08:00:00+00:00

XVII

When he entered the chamber of death, he was brooding over the recent encounter and devising extravagant revenges upon Blue Billie and the others.

The little old woman was stretched upon her bed. Her face and hands were of the hue of the blankets. Her hair, seemingly of a new and wondrous grayness, hung over her temples in whips and tangles. She was sickeningly motionless, save for her eyes, which rolled and swayed in maniacal glances.

A young doctor had just been administering medicine. “There,” he said, with a great satisfaction, “I guess that’ll do her good!” As he went briskly toward the door he met Kelcey. “Oh,” he said. “Son?”

Kelcey had that in his throat which was like fur. When he forced his voice, the words came first low and then high as if they had broken through something. “Will she—will she——”

The doctor glanced back at the bed. She was watching them as she would have watched ghouls, and muttering. “Can’t tell,” he said. “She’s wonderful woman! Got more vitality than you and I together! Can’t tell! May—may not! Good-day! Back in two hours.”

In the kitchen Mrs. Callahan was feverishly dusting the furniture, polishing this and that. She arranged everything in decorous rows. She was preparing for the coming of death. She looked at the floor as if she longed to scrub it.

The doctor paused to speak in an undertone to her, glancing at the bed. When he departed she labored with a renewed speed.

Kelcey approached his mother. From a little distance he called to her. “Mother—mother——” He proceeded with caution lest this mystic being upon the bed should clutch at him.

“Mother—mother—don’t yeh know me?” He put forth apprehensive, shaking fingers and touched her hand.

There were two brilliant steel-colored points upon her eyeballs. She was staring off at something sinister.

Suddenly she turned to her son in a wild babbling appeal. “Help me! Help me! Oh, help me! I see them coming.”

Kelcey called to her as to a distant place. “Mother! Mother!” She looked at him, and then there began within her a struggle to reach him with her mind. She fought with some implacable power whose fingers were in her brain. She called to Kelcey in stammering, incoherent cries for help.

Then she again looked away. “Ah, there they come! There they come! Ah, look—look—loo—” She arose to a sitting posture without the use of her arms.

Kelcey felt himself being choked. When her voice pealed forth in a scream he saw crimson curtains moving before his eyes. “Mother—oh, mother—there’s nothin’—there’s nothin’——”

She was at a kitchen-door with a dish-cloth in her hand. Within there had just been a clatter of crockery. Down through the trees of the orchard she could see a man in a field ploughing. “Bill—o-o-oh, Bill—have yeh seen Georgie? Is he out there with you? Georgie! Georgie! Come right here this minnet! Right—this—minnet!”

She began to talk to some people in the room. “I want t’ know what yeh want here! I want yeh t’ git out! I don’t want yeh

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