A Lantern in Her Hand by Bess Streeter Aldrich

Author:Bess Streeter Aldrich
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction
Publisher: Reading Essentials
Published: 1928-06-14T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER XX

And now Christine had to pull Abbie out of the drift and put forth all her effort to get the suffering woman to retrace her steps to the little front gate. She did not dare turn into the wide open gateway and run the risk of losing her bearings in the uncharted wilderness of the lane road.

In the added fear of her childbirth warnings, Abbie clung to Christine with all her strength. “Oh, . . . Christine . . . I can’t go any farther . . .” The storm god took the words and threw them back into her face.

“Come . . . you!” Christine hurled savagely into Abbie’s ear. “Of your man t’ink. Of your kinder t’ink. You’re verrückt . . . crazy!”

Christine kept her freezing right arm through Abbie’s, and plunging slowly ahead, grasped every picket with her left. Pausing, cowering, plunging, pulling Abbie’s half-prostrate body, she came to the welcome cross-pieces of the small gate. “By de cedars ve tell,” she called in Abbie’s ear. They turned blindly, for all directions seemed lost in the mad whirl of snow, crawled through the gateway, and grasped the first cedar. “How many?” Christine was calling.

“Nine,” Abbie moaned. She held onto the last far-reaching branch of the first cedar while Christine felt for the second.

“Zwei!”

Pushing on, cowering before the white smother, they crawled. The storm tore Abbie’s shawl from her and the frozen icicles of her wet hair beat her face like tiny razor blades.

“Drei.”

As she felt Christine pulling her forward, the hideous agonizing childbirth pains shook her freezing body again and she sank in a wildly whirling drift.

“Du narr!” Christine snarled at her ear. “Come . . . du narr . . . fool!”

She set her teeth and plunged ahead while the icy needles drew something moist and trickling from her face.

“Vier.”

And now her breath was going. One could not struggle on when there was no air to breathe. Christine was pulling her. Because she had no breath, Christine was pulling her.

“Fünf.”

Abbie sank to her knees in pain. Christine jerked at her fiercely. “Get you up.” In her ear Christine was yelling. “You die . . . you like dat dyin’ maybe . . . nein? Your baby . . . you keel heem . . . you like dat keelin’ your baby maybe?” No, she must not kill her baby, so she must do as Christine said. But it was so painful——

“Sechs.”

Abbie began to be too numb to feel the cold. What was the use of obeying Christine? Christine had no right to boss so.

“Sieben.”

The white suffocating smother was turning dark. There seemed no use fighting the hideous black thing that was closing her breath.

“Acht!”

Christine was pushing and dragging her. She ought to help Christine push and drag . . .

“Nein!”

Together they plunged to the wall of the house. By the loyal cedars they had found their way. In a war of snow, when the whole world was fighting it in mortal combat, only the cedars seemed not to have lost their heads.

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