Love's unfolding dream (Love Comes Softly Series #6) (23 page)

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him when Belinda appeared, still breathless. Marty wasn't sure if it was from running or from excitement.

They led Copper from the barn, and Belinda mounted. "Now, mind ya, don't run 'im too hard," Marty cautioned her. "Luke won't be that anxious fer ya to git there."

Belinda nodded, called a good-bye, and was off down the lane. It was then Marty remembered that Belinda hadn't even taken time for a snack, and the youngsters were always hungry when they got home from school. Well, for Belinda, her daily bread seemed to be her nursing.

Belinda pushed Copper. She was mindful of her mother's admonition, but she did not want to keep Luke waiting. She had not been there when Luke had first tended the child, but he had explained to her in detail about the burn the little girl had received. He was quite concerned. Besides causing the Young child a great deal of pain, Luke was afraid it might become infected and cause permanent damage to the arm. So Luke planned on keeping a very close eye on the girl. This meant a frequent change of bandages--and that was a difficult, painful process. Because of the oozing of the open sores, the bandages stuck--sometimes badly, and they had to be carefully and slowly soaked off. It was important to be patient in the process, both to prevent pain and to cause as little damage as possible to the wound beneath.

Belinda wasn't sure what her role would be. She had never been with Luke on a burn case before. Burns made her stomach flip. She had once burned herself when she was a little girl--not bad as burns go. In fact, they hadn't needed a doctor; her ma had treated it herself But it had been terribly painful, and Belinda had not been able to use two of her fingers for days. At the time, she wondered if they would ever be useable again. Of course they

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were. In fact, now Belinda had a hard time remembering which fingers it had been.

But this burn--according to Luke--this burn would be different. The little girl had spilled hot grease all down one arm. Some had splashed on her chest, too, but those burns weren't too deep.

Even as Belinda felt herself drawing back from what lay ahead, she pushed Copper as fast as she dared toward the neighboring farmhouse. Luke needed her. The little girl needed her. They must do all they could to save the use of her arm.

Luke's team was already there, tied to the hitching rail out front, when Belinda urged Copper down the lane at a gallop. She hastened to dismount and wrap the reins securely about the rail. If he was not tied carefully, Copper had a bad habit of leaving for home before his rider. Belinda hurried to the house.

The lady of the home greeted her. Belinda did not know the family well. They did not have school-age children as yet and did not attend their church. Belinda had seen them occasionally at community gatherings or on the street in town. She nodded to the woman now and her eyes searched the room for the patient.

Luke sat on a couch on one side of the room. A little girl-- perhaps three years old--with a big bandage sat on his knee. He was letting her play with his stethoscope. She put the instrument in her ears, as she had seen the doctor do, and grinned impishly at him.

She doesn't look too bad,
thought Belinda.
Why, she can even smile!
Belinda had expected to encounter screams of pain.

"Well, here's my nurse," Luke announced to both the mother and the little girl. "Guess we'd better get to work, huh?"

The woman took Belinda's coat, and Luke sent Belinda to the washbasin in the kitchen to carefully wash her hands. She knew when she had finished, he would also insist on pouring a strong- smelling disinfectant over her hands. She didn't mind the smell,

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but the kids at school teased her about it--it stayed with her for days. But Luke always insisted on the thorough cleansing, and Belinda did not even think of arguing about it.

"Now, Mandie," Luke said to the little girl, "let's take a look at that arm of yours."

The little girl pulled away. She did not want her arm touched. Instinctively, she knew it would be painful. She could bear the present pain--it still hurt, but it was bearable. But it had been worse. The memory of the pain she had endured made her draw away.

Luke gently lifted her and placed her on the table to take advantage of all the light he could. The child began to cry. Luke tried to soothe her, but the tears and shrieks only increased.

Luke turned to the mother.

"You might want to go for a bit of a walk, ma'am," he said softly to the woman. Already her eyes were filling with tears. She slipped on a warm coat, lifted the baby from the floor, and wrapped him securely in a blanket.

"I'll be at the barn iffen ya need me," she murmured.

The door closed gently, and the woman and baby were gone.

"Now," said Luke above the cries of the child, "I'd hoped you could keep her attention elsewhere, but that's not going to work. You'll have to hold her while I get this bandage off. First, let's get organized."

Luke poured hot water from the kettle on the stove into the basin and added some of his strong-smelling disinfectant. He swished the water round and round, making sure the sides of the basin had been cleansed, then he walked to the door and down the path a few steps to dispose of the water. When he returned, he poured more warm water into the basin and again added disinfectant. With the basin on the table, he laid out sterile pads and all of his instruments. Then he nodded to Belinda, who was holding the child, trying to comfort and assure her.

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Belinda placed the little girl back on the table and the screaming began again. They would not even be able to converse during the procedure. Luke nodded to Belinda above the child's head, and she took a firm hold of the little girl.

Belinda never would have dreamed that one so small could be so strong. It was all she could do to hold on to the child.

The first several rows of bandage came off quickly and easily, and then it began to get more difficult. Luke soaked and cut, soaked and cut, and the size of the bandage gradually decreased. And all the time they worked the little girl screamed and fought.

Belinda wished Luke could hurry She was getting exhausted. She wondered how the little one had the strength to go on fighting against the procedure.

But Luke did not hurry. He took his time, and carefully, oh, so carefully removed each layer.

By the time he was down to the last of the bandages, Belinda was aching and covered with perspiration. The bandages, put on so clean and sterile, were now heavy with blood and liquid from the oozing sores. The smell was a strange mixture of the body fluids and the medication Luke had used on them before. Belinda wondered for a few minutes if she was going to be sick, but she fought firmly against it. This was not the time to be feeling queasy. She held fast to the little girl.

"Doesn't look too good," she heard her brother say over the cries of the child, and Belinda let her eyes drop to the burned arm.

Her stomach lurched, and she shut her eyes and counted, trying to shut out the sight. The wound looked terrible.

"I'm gonna have to clean it up," Luke almost hollered at her in order to make himself heard. "Don't like to use chloroform on one so little, but might have to put her under for a bit."

Belinda watched as Luke poured a small amount of chloroform on a clean cloth. Then with a quick but gentle movement,

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he covered the child's nose and mouth. Almost immediately Belinda felt the small body relax in her arms. Luke carefully laid the little girl down on the clean sheet covering the kitchen table.

"We're going to have to work quickly" he said. "I didn't want to give her much. Now, you keep a close eye on her. Check her pulse often just as I showed you, and watch her breathing. I'll do this as fast as I can," and so saying Luke took his scissors and began to trim away the burned and lifeless flesh.

Belinda was glad she had something to do other than watch Luke. She checked the small girl's faint pulse, thankful that it remained even. Her breathing, too, did not alter. Belinda lifted the eyelid and studied the pupil's response to light. The child seemed to be doing fine.

"I don't think she'll stay under much longer," Belinda informed Luke, watching her eyelids flutter. "Do you want to give her a bit more?"

"I'm almost done. We'll try to make that do. I don't want to give any more if I can help it."

Luke was just finishing up the removal of the infected flesh when the girl began to stir. For a moment she looked about her uncertainly, and then she began to scream again. Luke moved her to a sitting position, and Belinda held her, talking to her soothingly.

The heavy medication on the bandages was nearly overpowering. Belinda felt her legs turning to rubber. She held the tiny arm as Luke pressed the sterile cloths carefully onto the burned area and began the process of rebandaging. Still the girl screamed. Belinda did not know if the cries now were from pain, fright, or anger--or all of them.

At last the job was done and Luke lifted the wee girl into his arms. Speaking softly in a hushed voice, he began to walk the floor with her, gently rocking her in his arms and murmuring soft words of comfort.

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Gradually the child calmed. Luke continued to croon, telling her over and over what a brave, big girl she was and how she was going to be all better soon.

He turned to Belinda, who had collapsed into a nearby chair. "You might want to tell her ma that she can come in now," he suggested.

Belinda reached for her coat.
Fresh air!
she thought in relief. She left the house and headed for the barn.

The woman was lying facedown on the hay. Beside her, bundled warmly against the weather, slept the baby.

"Ma'am," said Belinda, bending over the grieving form, ma'am.

The woman stirred, turning a tear-streaked face to Belinda. "We're all done. Ya can come in now"

"Thank God!" the woman muttered, and Belinda looked at her carefully.

How did she mean the words? They had not sounded like a small prayer of thanks, the way they did when her ma or pa spoke them. No, they had sounded quite different somehow. Belinda wished she knew what to say.

"Yes, ma'am," she faltered after a moment. "We do thank God. It's only Him thet can make the treatment work--make thet arm to heal."

The woman looked at Belinda with a very strange expression on her face, then lifted herself from the hay, gathered up her sleeping baby, and hurried to the house.

By the time they reached the kitchen, Luke had completely calmed the child. He had bathed her teary face with a warm cloth and smoothed back the tangled hair.

Except for the swollen eyes, one would not have known she had just been through such an ordeal.

The child reached for her mother, and the woman hurried to lay down the baby so she might take the little one from Luke.

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"I'll see you again in a couple of days," Luke was telling her.

"How. . . how many more times do we need to go through this?" the young mother asked him, her eyes filled with agony.

"I really can't say" Luke said honestly. "The burn doesn't look good at this point. It's going to be a fight to keep out infection. We'll have to keep a close watch on it. But I hope. . . I hope the healing process soon begins. Once it starts to heal properly, it might improve quite quickly. With a child, it often does," he assured her, patting the child's head.

Luke smiled at the woman. "We'll do the best we can," he promised her.

She nodded. She was too overwrought to even think of a thank-you, but Luke understood.

He gathered all his belongings, threw the dirty bandages into the kitchen stove so the woman would not need to see the reminder, and reached for his coat.

Outside, Luke laid his hand on Belinda's shoulder. "Thanks," he said. "I never could have done it without you."

She smiled weakly.

"Do you mind coming back a few times to give me a hand?" "No . . . I don't mind. I'll help."

"It's not very nice, is it?"

"No," admitted Belinda.

"It's always so much harder for me when it's a child," said Luke, shaking his head. "I just hope and pray I never need to treat one of my own. I don't know if I could bear it--or any of our family's children, for that matter. It would be so hard. The poor little things just can't understand the pain--and the treatment."

Luke shook his head. Belinda knew that he felt it deeply.

"You okay?" Luke sincerely asked her, searching her face.

"Fine," said Belinda.

"You looked a bit pale in there."

Belinda smiled again. "I felt pale for a few minutes, too."

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Luke gave her a quick hug and turned to untie his team.

"I have to go on to the Williams'. They think they have a case of measles. Let's plan to meet here on Thursday right after school, okay?"

"Yes," said Belinda, "I'll be here."

"Maybe next time it won't be quite so bad," said Luke, "but . . . I can't make any promises."

Belinda nodded and mounted Copper. She was anxious to get home.