CHAPTER IX.
Dividedbetween curiosity and hunger, Paula stood for some seconds deliberating whether she should go to join the group of people in the distant field or eat her supper. She finally decided upon a compromise, and, carefully spreading a delicate slice of bread, she made a sandwich of it by adding a bit of boiled ham, and thus fortified for any emergency she left the house.
She walked rapidly, at the same time casting furtive glances about lest somebody should see her “unladylike” performance of taking her supper “on the fly,” as was the habit of harum-scarum Octave. But no one observed her, or would have been at all shocked had they done so; and when the sandwich was finished the girl quickened her steps to a run, and reached her family in a breathless state unusual with her.
It was a scene of confusion upon which she came so hurriedly; but her first exclamation was one of relief: “Oh, it is only Octave!”
“Only Octave!” spoke volumes. It showed how familiar the elder sister had become with that unlucky maiden’s misfortunes; which were, indeed, even one degree more frequent than those of little Fritz, and he appeared—according to his Aunt Ruth’s fancy—to exist merely for the sake of tumbling out of one scrape into another. That Octave had not before this displayed her aptitude for disaster was due to the fact that provocation for such was rare at the peaceful Snuggery.
“‘Only Octave!’ but she has about done for herself, this time,” replied Uncle Fritz. He sat on the ground, holding his niece in his arms, looking very anxious but very red and heated as well. He was too stout to make the swift run he did without suffering for it, and Paula stooped down and offered to take his place in supporting the girl who lay so still and white before them all.
Even in the midst of her anxiety Aunt Ruth noticed Paula’s action, and was more pleased by it than she was accustomed to be by that “young lady’s” ways. It showed a consideration and sisterliness which, in her first hasty estimate of“Miss Pickel’s” character, the aunt had believed to be entirely wanting.
Grandmother Kinsolving stood at a little distance from the group, resting against Content, while Christina and Fritzy hugged each other in a terror of some great grief.
“What is it all about?” asked Paula, anxiously, bending to see if Octave was not beginning to breathe again, and even then shrinking a trifle from the streams of water with which Uncle Fritz, with a liberal impartiality, was deluging his unconscious niece and all who surrounded her.
“I reckon it was this here way,” replied the farmer, Abraham Tewksbury, who managed the farm for the Kinsolvings; “I was a-lettin’ the team stand whilst I run back ter shet the bars. This ’ere was the last load I was a-goin’ ter tackle ter-night, an’ the boys hed gone on ter the barn ter commence milkin’. I ’lowed to ’em ’t I could git the load in alone; an’ so I could, ef—” Here the narrator cast a glance, half angry, half sorry, at the victim of her own good-will. “But Octavy, here, she come a-tearin’ out the house an’ down here, like she was possessed. ‘Lemme drive thehorses, Abry-ham,’ sez she. I told her she’d a-better not; ’cause one on ’em was kinder coltish, an’ not used ter strange drivers. But she’d got her head sot, an’ whilst I was gone ter the bars up she clumb onter the hay-riggin’ an’ grabbed the reins. Fust I knowed, I heered her holler, an’ then she give a sort of Injun warwhoop; an’ then she snatched a whistle out her pocket an’ begun ter blow it. I yelled to her ter stop. That off mare she was scairt once at a band, an’ she hain’t never fergot it; but Octavy, she uther didn’t hear me, er less she warn’t afraid, for she kep’ right on a-blowin’. Next I knowed, thar she was an’ the hull load o’ hay a-top of her, an’ the horses broke loose an’ runnin’ like Jehuwhittaker!”
Abraham paused for want of breath, and all eyes were gladdened by the signs of returning consciousness which poor Octave showed. She had been stunned and almost smothered by her fall, and the hay which fell with her. It had been Abraham Tewksbury’s lusty yells which had roused the family from their supper talk, and then they had all flown to the scene of the accident. By the time they reached it the farmer had caughtand unhitched the team, and leaving them to find their own way stableward had vigorously set to work to toss the hay from off the girl, and to see if she were yet alive. That she should escape with her life, after being dragged half the length of the great meadow, seemed to him little short of a miracle.
“I s’pose it was the hay’t saved her. No, I don’t nuther. It was Providence. Nothin’ else on the face o’ the airth!” he had ejaculated fervently.
“Thee is right, Abraham. The Providence who watches over all His children,” said Grandmother Kinsolving, quietly. Even in that supreme moment of anxiety which her pallor showed her to be suffering, the outward serenity of Mother Amy’s face remained sweet and undisturbed, and Ruth wondered if anything could ever find her distrustful or afraid.
At a motion from Ruth’s hand, Uncle Fritz ceased racing to and fro between the brookside and the fainting Octave, and waited while she opened her eyes and looked wearily about her. Then he darted off for a horse and disappeared in search of the doctor.
When she could talk, Octave assured her anxious friends that she was “not hurt but scared”; but when she attempted to raise herself on her elbow she sank back with a groan, and the slowly returning color vanished anew from her face.
“Do ye think it would hurt ye very bad ef I should carry ye ter the house, Octavy?” asked Abraham, kindly.
“I hate—to move,” answered the poor girl, faintly.
“Yis, I don’t doubt it, not in the least; but ye know ye carn’t lay there all night, an’ I guess my carryin’ on ye won’t hurt ye so much as ’twould ter be took some other way.”
The others agreed with Mr. Tewksbury, and after one more protest from the injured girl, he lifted her in his strong arms and set out carefully for the house. The family followed slowly, Aunt Ruth’s face worn and terrified, as she saw that the motion, gentle as it was, made her niece sink into another faint. She tried to recall something of the peacefulness of her life before these “pickles” came into it; and Melville’s ill-temper and selfishness appeared almost angelic by contrast.
It was just a month since that fateful telegram had exploded in their midst, and already it seemed to the young mistress like a lifetime. A month—and Fritz, senior, had had the care of these children for years! How had he ever managed and yet retain his jollity? He not only endured them, but he seemed actually wretched at the thought of his long journey into South America, which would take him away from them for a few weeks. Then the thought recurred of his advice about Melville: “Just love him.” Ah! it must be this “just loving” that made all the difference.
“I would love them, too; I should be glad to—if they would only keep still long enough!” ejaculated the perplexed woman.
Fritzy heard her, and was glad to have the silence broken.
“What did you say, Aunt Ruthy?”
“I said— O Fritzy! Is something always happening to thee or thy sisters? Is there no such thing as quiet any more?”
The child looked gravely into the troubled face above him. “Why, yes, Auntie; I am quiet, ain’t I? They ain’t nothin’ ‘happened’ to methis whole, endurin’ day. Now, Octave, she’s settled; an’ Paula, she don’t never do anything not ezactly proper, so Fritzy Nunky says. Christina doesn’t do anything bad at all. I reckon it’ll be all right, Aunt Ruthy, now.”
Ruth smiled. Yet he comforted her also, for there was such a world of affection in his big blue eyes, as he lifted them to her troubled face, that her heart warmed to him. After all, though they were so vexatious, these “mixed pickles” left by her dead sister for some one to care for, did, as Uncle Fritz had predicted, “season” her life with a new interest. She would not exactly like to part with them just yet.
But her thoughts were interrupted by their arrival at the house, and the preparations for getting Octave made comfortable in her own bed-chamber.
Then the doctor came and examined the suffering girl, and reported, as a result of her prank, a broken arm and a badly sprained ankle. “And it is well she has escaped, even at that cost; she could not take a similar risk again and come out of it alive,” added the physician gravely.
Uncle Fritz was to have gone away on the morrow, but this accident deferred his departure; and over that the whole household rejoiced so heartily as almost to lose sight of the cause of the delay.
Octave herself helped them to forget. The same exuberance of life that carried her into one scrape after another, served to sustain her under any trial. A night’s rest set her nerves all straight, and her healthy body suffered less than another’s might have done. So long as she obeyed orders and lay perfectly still, she was comparatively free from pain, and she had not been crippled for a day before she began making plans for her own comfort and that of every one else.
“Now, you see, Aunt Ruth, that there is no use in having this pretty room of yours all in a muddle, as it is sure to be if I stay in it; besides, grandma doesn’t get her nap as she ought to do with me so close to her room, and all the ‘pickles’ running in and out, as they do. Just you have my cot rolled into Melville’s sitting-room, and I’ll stay there days. Nights I can sleep in that funny little hall outside of it, which I think is the prettiestplace in the whole house. Then, you see, the one who takes care of Melville, or hears him grumble, will have to hear me too,—lump it.”
“Thee doesn’t know Melville as well as I do, dear Octave, or thee would never propose such an arrangement as that.”
“Pooh!—I don’t mean that for you, Aunt Ruth, but for him! If you all treated his royal highness to a little more ‘pooh!’ and a little less ‘please!’ he’d be a more self-respecting boy. Try it, anyhow, won’t you? I can’t hurt him very much, now I’ve got myself tied down to this bed of roses. Try it, and I’ll lose my guess if I don’t do him good.”
Ruth laughed. Octave’s cheeriness surprised and greatly pleased her. Not even illness seemed to affect the merry girl’s spirit, and she was quite inclined to accept her proposition. The more so as Grandmother Kinsolving was the idol of her daughter’s heart, and Octave had hit the nail very squarely on the head in saying that the old lady’s rest would of necessity be greatly lessened by having Ruth’s adjoining room occupied “as a hospital.” Mother Amy was frail at the best;and, before these Pickels came, her health had been the one anxiety and care of the young housekeeper.
“Thee is a thoughtful child, Octave. I am half-minded to give thy notion a trial.”
The injured girl’s face brightened still more. “I did not know that you ever had a ‘half-mind,’ Aunt Ruthy. You look always decided enough to have a great, big, sound, and whole one, with a few ‘pieces’ to spare. Well, let’s get ‘Abry-ham’ and I’ll ‘beard the lion,’ and all the rest of it.”
“We will hope that ‘all the rest of it’ will not prove too much for even thy daring soul,” replied Aunt Ruth gaily; and as she passed out of the room she paused to give her charge a quiet kiss. This demonstration was rare with the aunt, and little Fritz alone of all his family would not have found it so. Because it was so unusual it was all the more appreciated by its recipient, and Octave banished the last regret she had felt; for, gay as she was, and little as she acknowledged it, there was an unselfishness in her proposal which even Aunt Ruth did not suspect. It was seldomthat Octave appeared to think of herself; but no one had ever observed that this was from any principle. It had rather seemed that the child never had time. She was always flying from one project to another, gay as a bird, and apparently as thoughtless. She certainly was the last one of all the young people whom her aunt, or any other, would have selected as likely to do the peculiar Melville any good.
“Abry-ham” came promptly, glad to be of use. His fatherly heart had been touched by the heroism with which Octave bore the setting of her broken bones and injured muscles; and even before that he had been won by the frank friendliness of the “young lady,” who was said to be a very rich person as far as money went.
Now, there is nothing that the uncultured mind so greatly regards as money; and the airs which Paula manifested were accepted as natural and appertaining to her station in life. If he had thought about the matter at all, Abraham would have considered that he should have done the same as Paula did under similar circumstances; but, even so, he found Octave’s simpler ways andequality of manner preferable. He would never stand in awe of her as he did of her elder sister, but he would do what was far better,—he would love her.
There was pleasure in his honest eyes because he had been summoned to do this service for the injured girl, and the ring of affection in his voice as he entered with his cheery, “Jehuwhittaker! This is how ye make things spin, is it? Don’t make no more o’ breakin’ a bone er two ’an some folks does o’ prickin’ their finger! Wal, I hope ye’ve counted the cost, afore ye set sail ter keep house along o’ Melville. He’s a critter ’at likes his own paddock, an’ no interference, I tell ye. Ye’re brave enough ter tackle a team o’ wild hosses, but ye better think twict afore ye tackle Melville Capers.”
“I don’t dare think twice, Mr. Abraham; I’m going right quick, while my first courage lasts. Now don’t you or Aunt Ruth say another word, but just wheel ahead! I’ll shut my teeth hard and not groan once, if you do hurt me.”
But the well-oiled castors of the little bed ran smoothly, and the wide doorways and corridorsseemed especially made for moving beds about, so Octave fancied; and in a few minutes the passage to Melville’s sitting-room was made, his door opened, and Octave’s narrow couch pushed in.
The cripple was so astonished that he almost sat upright. “What in thunder!” he exclaimed.
“Good afternoon!” said Octave, merrily.
“What does this mean?”
“That you are not very civil.”
Octave made a significant gesture, and both her smiling, anxious attendants withdrew to an invisible distance, leaving the two bed-ridden cousins to stare one another down.