Chapter X: Daisy's Wish

DURING many hours after Isaac's visit to the sick room, Daisy was more or less unconscious. She moaned often, and sometimes she started and cried out in fear, and now and then she would grasp at Mary Davis as if for protection. Occasionally she seemed to know her nurse, and then again the blank would come back, blotting out all sense. This state passed slowly away, and Daisy regained gradually her lost ground. But Mary made up her mind that Isaac Meads should not be again admitted into his child's presence. She kept the door bolted thenceforward, and never left Daisy alone for even a few seconds without locking it behind her. Isaac made one or two more attempts to enter, and found himself foiled.

"Father hasn't been to see me again," Daisy remarked unexpectedly one evening, several days later.

"He's been wanting to, but I didn't think it was good for you," Mary answered.

"But perhaps it isn't right to keep him away," said Daisy. "Poor father has nobody else, you know."

"It's his own fault if he hasn't," said Mary. "I'm not going to have him frighten you, and make you ill again, Daisy." She not seldom addressed the sick girl thus, as she had been wont in past years to address the little child, dropping half-unconsciously the "Miss," which had at first come naturally. Daisy looked so small and young, lying in her narrow bed, that Mary Davis began to think of her again as quite a child.

"I should not be so frightened, perhaps, a second time," said Daisy calmly. "I have been thinking about it, Nursie. Father wouldn't really want to hurt me, I am sure,—and you know it wouldn't do to keep him always from me."

"Not always. Only till you are better, dear," Mary said.

"But perhaps I never shall be better," said Daisy slowly. "I can't sit up yet, or move my legs. You can't think how heavy they seem. What does the doctor say is the reason, Nursie?"

"He don't say very clear, Miss, but he seems to think it is a sort of paralysis-like, from the lightning stroke,—not as he's used that word neither." Mary forgot at the moment that the real cause of Daisy's illness had never yet been recalled to her.

Daisy had hitherto asked few questions, and her doing so now took Mary by surprise. "Seems as if the power was all gone out of you; and he don't say just how long it'll last."

Daisy repeated the word "lightning," as if in surprise, and then she lay thinking.

"Yes," she said at length, "I remember now,—I remember the storm coming on; and the thunder; and the children being so frightened. And your husband put up his pitchfork. He didn't know any better, I suppose. But I don't seem to remember anything particular afterwards. Did the lightning really strike me?"

Mary Davis nodded. "Yes, and my husband too, Daisy."

"Then that is why he is ill in hospital. If he wasn't, I suppose you could not have come to nurse me. Is he hurt the same as I am?"

"No," Mary said. "His arm is badly burnt, and he is a good deal scorched beside; but it don't seem to have taken away all his strength nor made his legs bad, like with you."

"I dare say he is much the worst, really," said Daisy. "And the doctor doesn't know how long I shall be ill, Nursie?"

"He don't say, Miss Daisy."

"Father wouldn't like me to live on for years, if I couldn't walk," said Daisy, with a touching look of sadness. "He wouldn't like the expense, Nursie. It would be better for me to die."

"Miss Daisy, you mustn't talk so," said Mary.

"But I think it would be better," repeated Daisy. "Father would not want me, if I could not work for him, and there is nobody else. No one to take care of me except you, and your husband will want you by-and-by. Don't you think, Nursie, that perhaps I shall die soon?" Daisy did not sob, but her chest heaved quickly, and two large tears fell upon the white sheet.

"I think God knows best what is right for you, dear, and you oughtn't to want to die sooner than it's His will you should," said Mary, hardly able to command her voice.

"Yes, He knows best," said Daisy, tears dropping again. "And He loves me. I haven't been afraid once about dying, all the time I have been ill. It seemed so easy, when I thought of the Lord Jesus dying for me on the Cross. But—Nursie, I do feel afraid of having to live a long while, if I can't stand or work or do anything,—and nobody except father to take care of me. I'd a great deal rather die."

"I wouldn't be afraid," said Mary, leaning over the bed, and trying to smile. "If God is able to take care of you when you die, don't you think He's able to take care of you while you're alive too?"

"Yes,—able," said Daisy in a low voice.

"And don't you think He will, Daisy?"

"I ought to feel sure," said Daisy, with a distressed look. Then she asked quite suddenly, "Nursie, do you love God?"

"I hope so," faltered Mary Davis.

"I mean real love," said Daisy. "I mean the sort of love that makes you want to obey Him, and want to be with Him. You didn't in old days, did you, Nursie?" She always spoke of her childhood's years as "old days."

"No," Mary Davis answered at once, quite decidedly. "I don't say I hadn't a sort of wish to do right, Miss Daisy, but I didn't really try to serve God from my heart, and I don't think I loved Him at all."

"And you do now?"

"I hope so," said Mary Davis.

"I hope I do too," said Daisy slowly. Then she paused, and looked up, a bright smile lighting her whole face. "No,—I don't hope—I know I do. I think I love the Lord Jesus in just the sort of way I used to love mother. I can't love poor father like that, can I? It is more like being so very sorry for him. Nursie, I don't know what I should do, if God didn't love me. I don't know what in the world I should do. It's just my one real comfort."

"Then, Miss Daisy," said Mary, "if you feel like that, you won't need to be frightened any more about getting well, because you know He'll take care of you. Hasn't He said, 'I will never leave thee nor forsake thee'?"

"Yes," said Daisy thoughtfully, "I am quite sure. I ought to be quite sure. I suppose that is the real meaning of 'casting all your care on Him, for He careth for you.' I'll try not to be afraid any more."