The next morning, while lifting the doctor into the wagon, there was a
second hemorrhage. Even the sick man found it difficult to maintain
his cheery insouciance. Susan looked pinched, her tongue seemed
hardened to the consistency of leather that could not flex for the
ready utterance of words. The entire sum of her consciousness was
focused on her father. "Breakfast?"--with a blank glance at the
speaker--"is it breakfast time?" The men cooked for her and brought
her a cup of coffee and her plate of food. She set them on the
driver's seat, and when the doctor, keeping his head immovable, and
turning smiling eyes upon her, told her to eat she felt for them like a
blind woman. It was hard to swallow the coffee, took effort to force
it down a channel that was suddenly narrowed to a parched, resistent
tube. She would answer no one, seemed to have undergone an ossifying
of all faculties turned to the sounds and sights of life. David
remembered her state when the doctor had been ill on the Platte. But
the exclusion of the outer world was then an obsession of worry, a
jealous distraction, as if she resented the well-being of others when
hers were forced to suffer.
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