Uncle Bige's creaking heart

by Burton E. Stevenson

UNCLE BIGE'S CREAKING HEART

BY BURTON E. STEVENSON

IT began one evening after supper. I had brought Uncle Bige's corn-cob pipe out to him on the side porch, and was watching him fill it up, thinking maybe he'd tell me a story after he'd got it to going just right, when, all of a sudden, he let the pipe fall and dropped back in his chair with his hand to his side, and looking kind of green around the gills, like I saw a girl get once riding on the razzle-dazzle.

He groaned once or twice, while I sat there staring at him, with my tongue sticking to the roof of my mouth and cold shivers chasing each other up and down my back.

"Oh, my poor Mary!" he moaned after a while. "Sam, run an' tell Mary t' come here quick, ef she wants t' see me ag'in in this life."

Well, I didn't need to be told twice, and I just loped out to the kitchen, where Aunt Mary was putting up some tomatoes.

"Oh, Aunt Mary," I cried, "Uncle Bige is took. He says t' hurry up."

"Took!" cried Aunt Mary, wiping her hands nervously on her apron. "What d' y' mean, Sam?"

"Come on!" I said, and ran back again to the porch, with Aunt Mary at my heels, her slippers going flip-flop like a horse trotting along a sandy road.

Uncle Bige was still lying back in his chair, groaning kind of mournful every now and then, but he brightened up a little when he saw Aunt Mary.

"Good-by, Mary," he said, in a sort of hoarse whisper. "Good-by. I guess I'm a goner this time. Jest listen at my heart."

Aunt Mary put her ear down to his vest on the left-hand side and listened a minute, and when she straightened up again she looked 'most as scared as Uncle Bige.

"We must git y' t' bed, Abijah," she said, kind of subdued-like, just as if she was in church. "Does it hurt you much?"

"Not much. Only makes me feel weak and sick-like."

Aunt Mary nodded.

"I'll bet it does," she said. "I'll run an' turn down th' bed in th' spare room, so's you won't have t' go up-stairs. Sam, you stay here with your uncle, an' call me if he gits any worse."

I said I would, and I went up and stood right close by Uncle Bige's left side, for I was mighty curious to find out what it was had scared Aunt Mary so. He was leaning back with his eyes shut, breathing slow and painful, and so I put my ear down about where Aunt Mary had put hers, and gee! but I did jump.

Every time he breathed up and down you could hear his heart creak like anything. It reminded me of the time our old horse had the wheezes, only this was worse. I thought maybe what it needed was some oil to sort of slick it up and make it run smooth, but before I could say anything Aunt Mary came back again.

"Now, Abijah," she said, "I've got th' bed fixed. You lean on me. Sam, you take th' other side."

So we helped Uncle Bige up out of the chair, and started for the spare bedroom. He was mighty weak and tottery, and leaned on me so I couldn't hardly stand; but we finally got there, and Aunt Mary whisked him into his nightgown and put him to bed. Pretty soon Uncle Bige said he believed he felt a little easier.

"Listen at my heart, Mary," he said. "Seems t' me he 's sort o' got his wind ag'in."

Aunt Mary listened quite a while.

"I can't hear nothin'," she said at last "I've heard that them kind o' spells soon pass off, an' if they don't kill you right away, you're safe till th' next time. But I reckon you had a mighty close call."

"Yes, I reckon I did," said Uncle Bige. "But th' worst 's over now, an' I'm glad y' don't have t' call ole Sprigg."

Old Dr. Sprigg was the only doctor for five miles around, but he and Uncle Bige didn't gee very well since the time Uncle Bige thought he was bitten by a snake in the night and it turned out to be only a mosquito. He said after that he'd sooner die than have that old fool of a doctor in the house again.

Well, he didn't die this time, for by morning he was so much better he could sit up in bed and eat his breakfast. He said that the spell had made him uncommon hungry, and so Aunt Mary had to fry him two extra eggs and another slice of ham before he got enough. Along toward afternoon he sat up awhile with a blanket around him out on the porch, in a big chair that Aunt Mary fixed for him.

The day after that he got up for breakfast, and said he felt about as usual, but he guessed he'd go a little slow, because any sudden shock might bring on another spell, and he 'd heard that the second spell was fatal, or the third one, anyway. After breakfast he went down to the field to see how the men were getting along with the corn, and I went with him, because I thought maybe his heart might get to creaking again, and I didn't want to miss the chance to hear it. Uncle Bige walked around the field awhile and bossed the men, and then he remembered about his heart, and sat down by the fence to rest. Well, sir, it wasn't more than a minute till I saw him fall back on the ground with his hand up to his side.

"Boys!" he yelled. "Boys!"

We all ran to him as fast as we could, and one of the men threw some water into his face out of the water-jug.

"I'm gone," he moaned. "I'm gone this time, sure. She's creakin' ag'in!"

And sure enough I could hear it how even without putting my ear down. The other men heard it, too, and you could see the sweat break out on them. I tell you it was a scary thing to stand there and hear his heart making such a noise every time he took a full breath.

They lifted Uncle Bige into the wagon mighty slow and careful, and it wasn't no easy job, either, for he weighed considerable over two hundred pounds; and then I got in and held his head while Bill Hawkins drove the team back at a walk to the house. It reminded me of a funeral that I was to once, and I kept looking down at Uncle Bige to be sure he wasn't a corpse; but he lay there as white as a sheet, and his heart still a-creaking every time he breathed. Aunt Mary saw us coming a good ways off, and she came flying down the road.

"Is he dead?" she screamed, as she came up alongside of us. And then she looked over into the wagon. "Are you dead, Abijah?"

"Not yet, Mary," answered Uncle Bige, faint-like. "I guess maybe I'll pull through it ag'in this time."

Well, we put him in the spare bed again, and he came around all right, and the next day was able to be up. That afternoon his heart got to creaking again, but this time he just sat right still on the porch and let her creak, with me and Aunt Mary standing there expecting to see him drop over every minute. But after a while it stopped, and he said he didn't feel much worse and wouldn't go to bed. He sent me over to the drug-store at Springtown to get him a bottle of cod-liver oil, and he said that maybe if he got enough of that in him, his old heart would get greased up again and quit making such a fuss.

After that Uncle Bige got to be a big curiosity all through that part of the country. People would come for six or eight miles to listen to his heart and stay for dinner. Aunt Mary said she was getting mighty tired of running a boarding-house, but Uncle Bige seemed to like it, and as he couldn't do much work on account of his heart, all these visitors helped him pass the time. Besides, Aunt Mary didn't know what minute he might drop off, so she kind o' humored him.

Well, one Sunday afternoon the house was full. There must have been twenty-five people sitting around on the porch and in the front yard, and they were all taking turns listening to Uncle Bige's heart, which had an uncommonly bad spell on, when up came Dr. Sprigg a-driving along the road. He stopped out in front and looked at the row of buggies hitched there, and then he got out, hunted up a place to tie his own horse, and came in.

"What's the excitement?" he asked, as he got around to the porch. "Having a picnic or a wedding?"

The folks looked at one another sort of sheepish, thinking that they had been having a good time out of Uncle Bige's being so sick, and then one of the men took the doctor over to one corner and whispered something in his ear.

He kind of snorted, and then he came over to Uncle Bige.

"Bige Cheney," he said, "what's all this humbug about your heart squeakin'? 'Nother case of snake-bite, I reckon!"

"Dr. Sprigg," answered Uncle Bige, very haughty, "I object to bein' addressed in that manner, sir. It ain't no humbug. You see a man on the edge of the grave."

"Well, don't get mad," said the doctor. "We'll look into this. Where does it hurt you?"

"It don't hurt me anywheres—not much, anyway. But every time I breathe you kin hear it creak."

"Every time you breathe! Why, good heavens, man, you don't breathe with your heart!"

Uncle Bige didn't answer, but he made a little motion toward his left side.

The doctor put his ear down and listened a minute, while Uncle Bige breathed slow and solemn. Then he undid his vest and listened again. Then he took hold of Uncle Bige's suspender and worked it up and down two or three times, and then he began to laugh. I never saw a man laugh like he did. He just rolled around and held his sides and yelled. It made you laugh to look at him; and pretty soon the whole crowd was yelling like they was at a circus and the clown had just come in. Only Uncle Bige sat there solemn and pale-like, and Aunt Mary by him.

"Dr. Sprigg," he said, when the doctor had to stop a minute to get his breath, "it may be fun fer you, sir; but it ain't no fun fer a man that's lookin' in th' face of death."

"Face of your granddaddy!" snorted the doctor. "Here, Bige Cheney, listen to this"; and he grabbed Uncle Bige's suspender and worked it up and down. "Hear that? That's your suspender-buckle creakin'. Put a drop of oil on it, Bige, and your heart'll be all right again."

Well, you ought to have heard them people yell. Uncle Bige sat as still as a statue for a minute, and then got up and kind o' staggered into the house; and the people hurried out to their buggies and climbed in. But we could hear them shouting a mile down the road.

And Uncle Bige has never been quite the same man since. I can hardly ever get him to tell me a story any more.