CHAPTER VII.HILLTOP AGAIN.
“Little red riding hood, where are you going?”
“Going to see my grandmother,” replied Flaxie Frizzle, peeping out from under her scarlet hood. “And here’s a pat of butter for her in this wee, wee basket.”
“My dear Red Riding Hood, your grandmother is too sick to eat butter. Shut the door, walk very softly, and bring me my writing-desk. I’m going to write Aunt Charlotte, and ask her if she wants you at Hilltop.”
“Oh, mamma, how elegant! Is it ’causegrandma’s sick?” cried Flaxie, dropping her wee, wee basket, butter and all. She ought to have been ashamed to find she was so noisy that she had to be sent away from home; but she never thought about that. She did try to keep still, but as she had said to Julia that very morning, “there wasn’t any still in her!”
“Oh, let me write it myself to Milly; please let me write it myself.”
Flaxie was seven years old now, and had actually learned how to scribble pretty fast. She was very proud of this, for Milly could do nothing but print.
She seized a postal card, ruled it downhill with a pencil, and wrote on it a few cramped-up words, huddled close together like dried apples on a string:
“Dear Twin Little Cousin: My Mamma is going to let me go to yourHouse and go to school to your Dear teacher, becaus I make too much noise, and Grammy is sick with Something in her back and Ime glad but not unless your Mamma is willing. Wont you please to write and say so. My lines are unstraight, and its real too bad Good byFlaxie Frizzle.”
Mrs. Gray smiled when her little daughter asked how to spellunstraight, and smiled again when she saw the card and read, “Dear twin little cousin.”
“Oh, I know better than that,” explained Flaxie, blushing: “we’re not twins a bit, and couldn’t be if we should try, and we’ve known it for quite a long time; but you see, mamma, we’remake-believing, just for fun.”
“I never saw such a child for ‘make-believing,’” said Mrs. Gray, kissing Flaxie, who skipped gayly out of the room to pack her valise.
She always packed it, if there was the least thing said about going away. She didn’t mind the trouble, it was such apretty valise,—made of brown canvas, with leather straps like a trunk. And she knew Aunt Charlotte would want her at Hilltop,—people always do want little girls, and can’t have too many of them,—and it was best to be ready in season.
So she looked up her little umbrella, with F. F. painted on it in white letters, her school-books that she had been playing school with all over the house, and a half bushel or so of her best dolls. But as she did not go for a week, she had time to lose these things over and over, and some of them were never found any more.
“Now, darling,” said mamma, when Flaxie had bidden good-bye to papa and Preston, and Ninny and the baby, and was just entering the car behind her friend Mrs. Prim. “Now, darling, don’t be troublesome to dear Aunt Charlotte, and if you’ll learn to be goodand orderly and sweet like your Cousin Milly, I shall be so glad.”
Flaxie pondered upon this speech as she sat rattling along in the cars, munching peanuts, while Mrs. Prim took care of the shells.
“Troublesome. Oh, my! ’s ifIever troubled anybody! ’Cept Grandma Gray; and that’s ’cause she’s got something in her back. But mammaalwaysthinks Milly is nicer than me! Queer what makes mammasneverlike their own little girls!—I mean, not much. Now Aunt Charlotte thinks I’m the nicest. She scolds to Milly sometimes, but she don’t scold toME!”
Hilltop had been green when Flaxie left it, but now it was white, and seemed lovelier than ever, for Johnny had a new sled, and was “sucha kind-hearted boy!” That is, he was always ready to draw the twin cousins on the ice till they were half frozen andbegged him to stop, and I hardly see how hecouldhave been kinder than that!
Then the school was “perfickly elegant,” taught by that same dear teacher, Miss Pike. What if her nosewasred, and her mouth so large that little Betty Chase called her “the lady that can’t shut her face”? She was just lovely for all that, and Flaxie and Milly couldn’t forget that she had saved the schoolhouse when it was set on fire by mistake. After that she hadn’t looked homely a minute,—only “a beautiful homely,” that is ever and ever so much better than handsome;—and the little girls fairly adored her.
Now Flaxie was quick to learn, but as a general thing she didn’t study very hard, I am obliged to confess. When she couldn’t spell her lessons she said to Milly, “It’s ’cause you don’t have the same kind of books we have where I live. The words look so queer in your books!”
If Flaxie was noisy at Laurel Grove, what was she at Hilltop? Sometimes in the evening, when she played the piano and sang, Aunt Charlotte was really afraid she would disturb Mrs. Hunter, who lived in the other half of the house.
“Oh, I like it,” said Mrs. Hunter, pleasantly; “but don’t you think, Mrs. Allen, there is danger of her pounding your piano in pieces?”
But by and by there wasn’t so much time for music and play. The busy season had begun, when everybody was making ready for Christmas; and the twin cousins had as much as they could do in talking over what they weregoingto do, as they sat in each other’s lap and looked at their work-baskets.
Flaxie wanted to make a marvellous silk bedquilt for her dear mamma out of pieces as big as a dollar; but, finding there wouldn’t betime for that, concluded to buy her a paper of needles, “if it didn’t cost too much.”
Probably there wouldn’t have been anything done but talking if Aunt Charlotte hadn’t brought out some worsteds and canvas and set the helpless little ones at work upon a holder called the “Country Cousin.” They had a hard time over this young lady, and almost wished sometimes that she had never been born; but she turned out very brilliant at last, in a yellow skirt, red waist, and blue bonnet, with a green parasol over her head. After this they had courage to make some worsted balls for the babies, some cologne mats for their brothers who never used cologne, and some court-plaster cases for somebody else, with the motto, “I stick to you when others cut you.”
Both the children were tired with all this labor, and Flaxie discovered, after her presentswere packed and ready to send off by express, that she didn’t feel very well.
“My throat is so sore I can’tswoler,”—so she wrote on a postal to her mother; for when she was sick she wanted everybody to know it.
Before Aunt Charlotte heard of the sad condition of her throat, she had said she might go with Milly and Johnny and some of the older children in the village, to see the ladies trim the church. But when Flaxie came into the parlor with her teeth chattering, Aunt Charlotte began to fear she ought not to go out.
“Are you so very chilly, my dear?”
“Yes ’m, I am,” replied Flaxie, with a doleful look around the corners of her mouth. “This house isn’t heated by steam like my house where I live, and I’m drefful easy to freeze!” And her teeth chattered again.
Aunt Charlotte looked anxious, as she drew on her gloves.
“My child, you’d better not go to the church, for it’s rather cold there.”
“Cold as a barn,” put in Johnny.
“Oh, auntie, do please, lemme go! I’m cold, but it’s awarmcold though,” said Flaxie, eagerly; and her teeth stopped chattering.
“I’m sorry, Flaxie, but there’s a chill in the air like snow, and if your throat is sore it is much wiser for you to stay at home,” said Aunt Charlotte, gently but firmly, like a good mother who is accustomed to be obeyed by her children.
And poor Flaxie was obliged to submit, though it cut her to the heart when Milly gave her a light kiss and skipped away; and she did think it was cruel in Aunt Charlotte to advise her to go into the nursery and stay with Nancy and the baby. She wished she had never said a word about her throat.
“It don’t feel any worse’n a mosquito-bite,” thought she, watching the gay party from the window,—half a dozen ladies and as many children; “it don’t hurt me to swallow either,”—swallowing her tears.
“Hilltop’s such a queer place! Not the least speck of steam in the houses! If they had steam, you could go anywhere, if your throatwassore! And I never saw anybody trim a church; and oh, Milly says they’ll havebeau-tiful flowers, and crosses, and things!Inever saw anybody trimanything—’cept a loaf of cake and flowers on a bonnet.”
Foolish Flaxie, to stand there winking tears into her eyes!Youwould have known better; you would have gone into the nursery to play with that lovely baby; but there were times, I am sorry to say, when Flaxie really enjoyed being unhappy. So now shestood still, rolling her little trouble over and over, as boys roll a snowball, making it larger and larger, till presently it was as big as a mountain.
“AuntiesaidI might go, and then she wouldn’t lemme! Made me stay at home to play with that ole baby! He’s squirmy and wigglesome; what do I want to play withhimfor, when shesaidI might go? I like good aunties; I don’t like the kind that tell lies.
“Oh, my throatisgrowing sore, and I’m going off up-stairs to stay in the cold, and get sick, ’cause they ought to keep steam; andthenI guess auntie’ll be sorry!”
I grieve to tell you this about Flaxie, for I fear you will not like a little girl who could be so very naughty.
When the happy party of church-trimmers came home at tea-time, there she was up-stairsin the “doleful dumps;” and it was a long while before Milly could coax her down.
When she came at last, her face was a sight to behold—all purple, and spotted, and striped; for a fit of crying always gave her the appearance of measles. She consented to take a seat at table, but ate little, said nothing, and gazed mournfully at her plate.
This distressed Aunt Charlotte, but she asked no questions, and tried to keep Johnny talking, so he would not notice his afflicted little cousin.
“Now whatdoesmake you act so?” asked Milly, as soon as tea was over.
“‘Got acricketin my neck;Can’t move it a single speck,’”
replied Flaxie, not knowing she had made poetry, till Johnny, who was supposed to be ever so far off, began to laugh; and then shemoved her neck fast enough, and shook her head, and stamped her foot.
“Let’s go in the nursery, so Johnny can’t plague you,” said the peace-loving Milly. “I’m so sorry you’re sick.”
Flaxie had not meant to speak, but she could not help talking to Milly.
“Wish I’se at home,” said she, reproachfully, “’cause my mamma keeps pepmint.”
“Why, Flaxie, my mamma keeps it too. We’ve got lots and lots of it in the cupboard.”
“Don’t care if you have,” snapped Flaxie. “I just despise pepmint. It’s something else I want, and can’t think of the name of; but I know you don’t keep it, for your papa isn’t a doctor!”
It was not the first time Flaxie had wounded her sweet cousin’s feelings by this same cutting remark.
“Dr. Papa keepstittlishpowders in blueand white papers, and one of the papersbuzzes. I guess he’d give me that, but I don’t know,” added Flaxie, crying again harder than ever, though the tears fell like fire on her poor, sore cheeks.
CHAPTER VIII.A CRAZY CHRISTMAS.
“You dear little thing,” said Aunt Charlotte, coming into the room with Ken in her arms, but putting him down and taking up her naughty niece. “You’ve been getting homesick all by yourself this long afternoon. Where did you stay?”
“Stayed up-sta—irs,” sobbed Flaxie.
“In the cold? Why, darling, what made you?”
“You all went off and left me,” replied Flaxie, with a little tempest of tears.
Then auntie understood it all,—how this child, who was old enough to know better,had been rolling a little bit of a trouble over and over, till it had grown into a mountain and almost crushed her. And the mother-heart in Aunt Charlotte’s bosom ached for poor foolish Flaxie.
“She has added to her cold, and is feverish,” thought the good lady, sending for Nancy to bring some hot water in the tin bath-tub that was used for washing the children.
“I shall have you sleep with me to-night, in the down-stairs room,” said Aunt Charlotte; “and I’ll put a flannel round your neck, dear, and some poultices on your feet.”
Flaxie smiled faintly as she saw the dried burdock-leaves soaking in vinegar, for she liked to have a suitable parade made over her when she was sick. Besides, she had often thought she should enjoy sleeping in the “down-stairs room,” and was glad now thatUncle Ben happened to be gone; that is, as glad as she could be of anything. It was a miserable, forlorn world all of a sudden to Flaxie, and she had never known such “a mean old night,” even if it was “the night before Christmas.”
The lamp burning dimly in the corner of the room, on the floor, cast shadows that frightened her; her head ached; she woke the baby in the crib by crying, and then he woke everybody else.
It was a “mean old night” to the whole house; and when I say thewholehouse, I mean both halves of it. About midnight, as Mrs. Hunter was sleeping sweetly, her door-bell rang a furious peal. Nobody likes to hear such a sound at dead of night, and Mrs. Hunter trembled a little, for she was all alone with her children; but she rose and dressed as fast as possible, and went down-stairs with a lamp.
“Who is it?” she asked, through the keyhole.
“It’sME!” said a childish voice that she thought sounded like one of the Allen children.
She ventured to open the door, and there on the steps in the darkness stood Flaxie Frizzle, bareheaded, shivering, and looking terribly frightened.
“Oh, Mrs. Hunter, somethingorfulhas happened at our house. Oh, come quick, Mrs. Hunter!”
“Yes, yes, dear, I’ll go this minute; but what is it?” said the lady, hurrying to the entry closet for her shawl.
“Auntie is crazy! She is running round and round with the tea-kettle.”
Mrs. Hunter stood still with amazement.
“Who sentyouhere?” said she. “Why don’t they call the doctor?”
“I don’t know. She’s going to scald me to death, and I s’pose you know I’m sick,” whined Flaxie, sinking down on the doormat, where the light of the lamp shone full upon her, and Mrs. Hunter saw—what she might have seen before, if she had not been so nervous—that the little girl wore a checked flannel nightie, and her feet were done up in poultices.
Of course she must have come away without any one’s knowing it, that cold night, with the snow falling too! It was she that was crazy, instead of Aunt Charlotte.
“How could the child have got out of the house?” thought Mrs. Hunter.
But the question was now, how to get her back again?
“Come, Flaxie,” said she, in a soothing tone, “let me wrap you up in a shawl and take you home pickaback,—there’s a good girl!”
“But I don’t want auntie to scald me.”
“She shan’t, dear. If she has got the tea-kettle, I’ll take it away from her.”
“Honest?” asked Flaxie, piteously.
But she forgot her terror as soon as she was mounted pickaback, and thought herself the “country cousin” taking a ride on a holder.
All this while everybody in the Allen half of the house was up and hunting for the lost child. Milly was crying bitterly; Johnny had come in from the barn, where he had pulled the hay all over; and Uncle Ben, who had just returned from his journey, was starting out on the street with a lantern.
Just then Mrs. Hunter walked in, and dropped Flaxie into Aunt Charlotte’s arms, saying:
“Here, I’ve brought you a poor sick child.”
Then there was such a commotion thatFlaxie was more bewildered than ever, and at sight of Uncle Ben she screamed wildly. It was his coming home about ten minutes before that had frightened her, in the first place, by waking her from a bad dream; and she had slipped out of bed, and out of the open front door, before any one missed her.
“There! there! darling, don’t cry,” said Aunt Charlotte, hushing her in her arms, while Mrs. Hunter heated a blanket.
“I’ve done somethingorful,” said Flaxie in her auntie’s ear. “I’m so sorry; but I stole a horse and sleigh!Don’ttell, auntie! I put ’em behind that door.”
“Well, never mind it, dear; you didn’t mean to,” said Aunt Charlotte, smiling in spite of her heavy heart. Then she turned to Uncle Ben, who stood by, looking puzzled, and asked him in a whisper if he “didn’t think he ought to go for the doctor”?
“Oh, by all means,” said Mrs. Hunter, beginning to help him on with his overcoat.
He had hurried home in the night train, on purpose to spend Christmas day with his family, and was really too tired to take a ride of two miles in a snow-storm. But he was not thinking of that; he was thinking how dreadful it was to have his dear little niece sick away from home; and how her papa didn’t like the Hilltop doctor,—and perhaps it was best to go three miles farther to the next town after Dr. Pulsifer.
“Yes, go for Dr. Pulsifer,” said Aunt Charlotte, when he asked her about it; “and be as quick as you can.”
Flaxie knew nothing of all this. Her cheeks burned, her eyes shone, and she kept saying there were a million lions and tigers in the bed; and where was the rat-trap?
“Do bring the rat-trap!” said she, plungingabout in a fright. “Oh, you don’t hear, do you? There’s a woman out in the other room eating peas,—eating, and eating, and eating. Why don’t you stop her? Oh, you don’t hear! Johnny Allen, run for a sponge and vinegar, and put it in auntie’s ears, so she can hear!”
Milly laughed at these strange speeches till she heard Nancy say to Mrs. Hunter, “Crazy as a loon, ain’t she? I’m afraid it’s water on the brain.”
Then Milly, who did not understand Nancy’s meaning, but was appalled by the tone, ran into the pantry, and cried behind the flour-barrel.
“If Flaxie Frizzle dies, I want to die too! She’s the only twin cousin I’ve got in the world.”
In a short time, considering how far he had ridden, Uncle Ben came home, but withoutDr. Pulsifer, who had gone away, and could not be there before to-morrow noon.
“I’m so disappointed,” said Aunt Charlotte, looking pale and ill enough herself to be in bed. “But the poor little thing is asleep now, and perhaps she isn’t so very sick after all. Do tell me if you think there’s any danger of brain-fever?”
“Well, I think this,” replied Uncle Ben, leaning over the bed and taking a long look at the little patient; “Idon’t know what ails her! It may be diphtheria, and then again it may be common sore throat; but if she isn’t better in the morning, we’ll telegraph to her father, for a child that can turn yellow and pea-green, as she did last spring, is capable of almost anything.”
“That is true,” said Aunt Charlotte; “one never knows what she is going to do next.” And then she looked at Flaxie, and sighed.It was wonderful what a power she had of keeping her friends in a worry, this little pink and white slip of a girl! Once she had fallen into a brook, and once into a well, beside falling sick times without number. Uncle Ben and Aunt Charlotte knew all this, but they did not happen to know that it was a very common thing for Flaxie to be crazy! It was just so with her brother Preston and her sister Ninny; they seldom had any little ailment like a bad cold without “going out of their heads,” and nobody in the family minded it at all.
If Flaxie’s mother had been at Hilltop, she would have sent Uncle Ben and Aunt Charlotte to bed; but as she was not there, and they didn’t know any better, they sat up all night watching their queer little niece.
Rather a sorry “Christmas eve” all around the house,—but a beautiful Christmas morning,and not a cloud in the sky. Flaxie woke as gay as a bird, without the least recollection of the horrors she had suffered in the night from tigers and tea-kettles.
“Wish you merry Christmas!” cried she to pale Aunt Charlotte, and sprang out of bed with poultices on her feet to go after her Christmas stocking.
“Well, is this the little girl they thought was so sick,” said Dr. Pulsifer, when he arrived at noon, and found her and Milly lying on the rug, with a pair of twin dolls between them dressed just alike, and each with a fur cap on its head.
He felt Flaxie’s pulse and looked at her tongue, and said he “shouldn’t waste any of his nice medicine onher.”
“But my cold isn’t good at all, now honest; and my throat’s a little sore—I guess,” said Flaxie, drawing a long face, and feelingrather ashamed not to be sick now, when the doctor had been sent for on purpose!
“Never mind! If you don’t need me, your aunt does. What do you think of yourself, you little piece of mischief, running away in the night, and frightening people so that they are sick abed Christmas day?”
All Flaxie’s good time was over in a minute.Wasauntie sick abed up-stairs? Was that why Flaxie hadn’t seen her since morning?
“Oh, mayn’t I go look at her?” said she, after the doctor had left. And Uncle Ben consented, thinking she wouldn’t stay a minute.
“Oh, I’m so sorry! I do love you dearly,” cried penitent Flaxie, climbing upon the bed and cuddling close to the white auntie. “DidI make you sick? I didn’t mean to; and I don’t ’member anything about the tea-kettle.”
“There, there, dear, don’t cry.”
“I oughtn’t to stayed up-stairs yesterday in the cold,” went on Flaxie, determined to free her mind. “That was the wickedest thing! But you were just as good as you could be, if youdidtrim the church; and I’ll never do so again!”
“Oh, hush, dear; you shake the bed.”
“I’m real bad in here, in my s-o-ul!” wailed Flaxie, squeezing her eyelids together tight, and laying her hand on her stomach. “Why don’t God make me beautiful inside o’ my soul?”
“Ask Him, dear child!”
“Will He?” said Flaxie, earnestly. “Oh, yes, I know;” and her eager face fell. “But He’ll have to make me homely to do it, just like Miss Pike.”
“Oh, no, my darling.”
“Won’t He? See what a orful cole-soreI’ve got on my mouth. If it would stay there, and stick on always, do you s’pose I’d grow good?” asked Flaxie, thoughtfully.
Aunt Charlotte almost smiled.
“’Cause I’m willing to be a little homely,—now truly—if I can have a nice so-o-ul,” added the child, with a true and deep feeling of her own naughtiness that I am sure the angels must have been glad to see.
But she was shaking the bed again, and Uncle Ben drew her gently away, and took her down stairs in his arms to finish the rest of her “crazy Christmas.”
CHAPTER IX.MILLY VISITING.
Winter passed, spring came, and April was half over before the twin cousins met again. Then it was Milly’s turn to go to Laurel Grove to see Flaxie. She had written a postal-card slowly, and with great pains, to say “she should be there to-morrow if it was pleasant.”
But how it did rain! It had rained for two days as if the sky meant to pour itself away in tears; but on Wednesday the sun came rushing through the clouds, his face all aglow with smiles, and put an end to such dismal business. The rain ceased, the cloudsscampered away and hid themselves, and the sky cleared up as bright as if nothing had ever been the matter.
Sweet little Milly looked out of the window, heard the birds sing, and whispered in her heart:
“Oh, how kind God is to give me a good day to go to Laurel Grove!”
She didn’t own a pretty valise of brown canvas with leather straps like Flaxie’s. All in the world she had was an old bandbox trunk that belonged to her mother, and she took no care of that, for Milly never “travelled alone.”
“Well, little sobersides,” said her father, putting the check in his pocket, the ticket in his hat, and opening a car-window before he sat down beside Milly. “Well, little sobersides, are you glad you’re going visiting?”
“Yes, sir,” said she, her eyes shining.She didn’t laugh and clap her hands quite as much as Flaxie did, but you always knew when she was happy by the glad look in her eyes.
“I hope you two little folks won’t get into too much mischief at Laurel Grove. Are you going to school?”
“Yes, sir; and oh, it’s such an elegant schoolhouse!”
“Well, don’t set it on fire.”
Milly blushed.
“But the teacher isn’t half so nice as Miss Pike.”
The dear little girl had not been at Laurel Grove for a long while, but all the people in town seemed to remember her,—Mr. Lane the minister, Mr. Snow the postmaster, and everybody they met in the street. Her father noticed how they smiled upon her, as if they loved her, and it made his heart glad.
Preston drove his uncle and cousin home from the depot, but he almost ran into a lumber-wagon, and Mr. Allen thought he was too young a boy to be trusted with such a fiery horse as Whiz. Flaxie sat with him on the front seat of the carriage, dancing up and down, and turning around to say to Milly:
“Oh, I’m so happy I can’t keep still.” She looked like a bluebird, in her blue dress and sash, with a white chip bonnet, blue ribbon and blue feather, and Milly thought there was not another such girl in the world.
It was a charming place at Dr. Gray’s, and the house was full of beautiful things, such as Milly did not see at her own home; but that never made her discontented or unhappy. If God gave Flaxie prettier things than He gave her, it was because He thought best to do so, and that was enough for Milly.
“O Aunt Emily,areyou glad to see me?” said she, as Mrs. Gray kissed her over and over again.
“Yes, I’m just as glad as I can be, and I wish you were my own little girl,” said Mrs. Gray, who had five children already.
The “little bit-of-est” one was a year old now, and didn’t know Milly at all, but Phil know her and prattled away to her so fast that nobody else could be heard.
That afternoon she and Flaxie were in the stable, feeding Whiz with lumps of sugar, while the dog, Tantra Bogus, capered about them, giving their cheeks a “thou-sand” kisses with his long, loving tongue.
“Stop, Tantra Bogus; now we’ll have to go and wash our faces,” said Flaxie.
As they entered the kitchen by the outside door they met Mrs. Gray standing there talking to Preston.
“Here is a cup of jelly,” said she, “and I’d like to have you take it to Sammy Proudfit.”
This was Wednesday afternoon, and Preston was starting to go about half a mile up town to recite an extra lesson to his teacher, Mr. Garland.
“Oh, you’re coming too, are you?” said he, looking around at Flaxie and Milly, who were skipping along behind him, drawing a handsome doll’s carriage.
“Yes, we are going up on the bank to play with Blanche Jones and Fanny Townsend: mamma said we might,” replied Flaxie, dancing.
Preston was very glad of the company of two such happy little girls, only he forgot to say so.
“And we’ve built a house of birch bark under the trees. But it hasn’t any stove-pipe!”said Flaxie, who had never forgotten that unfortunate house that Jack built.
“And we’re going to have a doll’s party in it,” remarked Milly.
“Oh, no, not a party, it’s areception,” corrected Flaxie; “that’s what Fanny Townsend says they call ’em in Washington. My biggest dolly, Christie Gretchen, is going to receive. Oh, you don’t know how beautifully she’s dressed! And all the other dollies are coming to call on her, with the cunningest little cards in their pockets.”
“Oh, do your dollies play cards?”
“No, indeed; it’svisitingcards,—don’t you know?—with their names printed on them, just like ladies. Ninny did that.”
As they chattered in this way they were drawing near the Proudfit house, which stood at the foot of the hill, and little Milly sang,
“There was an old woman lived under the hill;”
Preston sang to the same tune:
“And she had a little boy who was not very ill,And he went to bed, and he lies there still.”
“Why, Preston Gray, did you make that all up yourself?” cried Flaxie, amazed at his genius.
But there was no time for more poetry, even if Preston had been able to make it, for they were standing now at the door. It was an old, tumble-down house. The children called it black, and in fact it was a sort of slate-color, though it had never been painted at all, except by the sun, wind, and rain. In the road before it three dirty children were poking sand, and they looked so shabby that Milly whispered:
“I shouldn’t think they’d be calledProudfits: they don’t look very proud!”
“No,” replied Preston, trying to be witty, “the name doesn’tfit.”
Mrs. Proudfit was changing Sammy’s pillow-cases when she heard the children knock, and came to the door with a pillow between her teeth. She was “proper glad of the jelly,” as Preston thought she ought to be.
There was a smell of hot gingerbread in the air, which reminded Flaxie of the time ever so long ago, when she had taken supper in that house without leave; and there was Patty at the window this minute making faces. It is strange how things change to you as you grow older! Flaxie never cared to visit at that house now, for Patty wasn’t a nice little girl at all; she not only teased away your playthings, but told wrong stories.
“Our baby’s two months old, and he’s got two teeth!” cried she, as Flaxie turned away; but nobody believed her.
The twin cousins and their little friendshad a gay time that afternoon on the bank, and Christie Gretchen “received” with great dignity; but I have no time to talk of that now, I want to tell you something about Preston.
When they reached Mr. Garland’s house, the little girls left him, and he walked up the gravel path to Mr. Garland’s front door and rang the bell with a sober face.
“I don’t believe I can say my lesson, and Mr. Garland will think I’m a dunce,” said he to himself, with a quivering lip.
Now Preston Gray was remarkably handsome, and one of the dearest boys that ever lived, but not a great scholar. He could whittle chairs and sofas and churns for Flaxie with a jackknife, and I don’t know how many ships and steam-engines he had made; but he did not learn his lessons very well.
To-day, after the recitation was over, Mr.Garland walked with him along the bank of the river.
“Preston, my fine little fellow,” said he, kindly, “I can’t bear to scold a boy I love so dearly; but I’ve been afraid for some time that you don’t study this term as hard as usual; what’s the matter?”
Tears sprang to Preston’s eyes, but he brushed them off and pretended to be looking the other way.
“Now, seriously, whatdoyou suppose boys were made for?” went on Mr. Garland, without the least idea Preston was crying; “you don’t suppose they were made on purpose to play and have a good time?”
“I don’ know, sir,” replied Preston, clearing his throat, and trying to laugh; “perhaps they were made to play a good deal, you know, because they can’t play when they grow to be men.”
“Ah, Preston, Preston, I am not joking with you at all. If you were a small child like your sister Flaxie it would not matter so much whether you studied or not, but your father expects a great deal of his oldest son, and it grieves me to have to say to him—”
“Oh, don’t, don’t,” wailed poor little Preston, “I’ll do anything in the world if you won’t talk to my father; I’ll take my books home, I’ll—I’ll—”
“There, there, never mind it,” said soft-hearted Mr. Garland, moved by the boy’s distress, “if you really mean to do better—Why, look out, child, you’d have fallen over that stump if I hadn’t pulled you back. Where in the world were your eyes?”
“I was looking at that big woman across the street,” stammered Preston; “how funny she walks!”
“Woman? What woman? Why, that’s aboy with a wheelbarrow,” exclaimed Mr. Garland, in great surprise.
Preston blushed with all his might and dropped his chin.
“Please, don’t tell anybody I took a wheelbarrow for a woman! They’d laugh at me. Of course I knew better as soon as I came to think.”
Mr. Garland stopped suddenly and stared at Preston.
“Look up here into my face, my boy.”
Preston raised his beautiful brown eyes,—thosegoodeyes, which won everybody’s love and trust; and his teacher gazed at them earnestly.
But Mr. Garland was not admiring their beauty or their gentle expression. He saw something else in Preston’s eyes which startled him and gave him a pang. Not tears, for those had been dashed away, buta sort of thin mist lay over them, like that which veils the sun in cloudy weather.
“Can it be possible? Why, Preston, why, Preston, my boy,” said Mr. Garland, taking the young face gently between his hands, “when did things begin to blur so and look dim to you?”
Preston did not answer.
“Tell me; don’t be afraid.”
“It’s been,” replied Preston, choking, “it’s been a long while. The sun isn’t so bright somehow as it was; and oh, Mr. Garland, the print in my books isn’t so black as it used to be! But I didn’t want to make a fuss about it, and have father know it.”
“Why not?”
“Oh, he’d give me medicine, I suppose.”
“My boy, my poor boy, you ought to have told him.”
“Do you think so? Well, I hoped I’d get better, you know.”
“Preston, is this the reason you don’t learn your lessons any better?”
“I don’t know. Yes, sir, I think so. I can’t read the words in my books very well.”
“You poor, blessed child! Growing blind,” thought Mr. Garland; but did not say the words aloud.
“And I have to sit in the sun to see.”
“I wish I had known this before, and I wouldn’t have complained when you had bad lessons. Why didn’t you tell me, you patient soul!”
“Oh, I don’t know, sir; you didn’t ask me.”
“Good night,” said Mr. Garland, in an unsteady voice. “And don’t you study to-morrow one word. You may sit and draw pictures all day long if you like.”
Preston smiled. He did not know whatmade his dear teacher say this, and place his hand on his shoulder so tenderly; but he was glad of it, very glad; for now it was certain that Mr. Garland would not blame him any more; and he ran home with a light heart.
CHAPTER X.BLACKDROP.
“Oh, we had such an elegant time up there on the bank! only the boys came and plagued us,” cried Flaxie, bursting into the house, followed by Milly.
She said it to her papa, but he did not appear to listen. He sat holding Preston on his knee, and looking at him sadly.
Then Flaxie turned to her mother.
“Why, mamma, Willy Patten threw kisses to me when he was a boy, and wasn’t my cousin!”
But Mrs. Gray did not listen either. She too was looking at Preston. Mr. Garlandhad just been at the house talking with them about the dear child’s eyes, and she and Dr. Papa were heavy at heart. Flaxie did not know of this, but she felt vaguely that something was wrong.
Milly felt it too, and almost wished she had gone home with her father in the afternoon train.
“What has mamma been crying about?” thought Julia. “I’m afraid Preston has been a naughty boy, for she and papa have looked very sober ever since Mr. Garland was here.”
Preston himself understood the case a little better, and was saying to himself: “I guess there’s something awful the matter with my eyes, or father wouldn’t have told Mr. Garland he should take me to New York.”
There were cold turkey, and pop-overs, and honey for supper, but it wasn’t a pleasant meal; there was no chatting and laughing;and Dr. Papa hurried away from the table as soon as possible to go to see a sick lady up town.
It was some time before the children were told the dreadful news that Preston was losing his sight. They wondered the next week why he should be allowed to stay out of school and play, and why his father, who was always kind to him, should be so very gentle now, almost as gentle as he was to little Phil.
One day Dr. Gray took Preston to New York to see an oculist. An oculist is a physician who treats diseases of the eye.
When Dr. A. called Preston up to him, and looked at the beautiful eyes over which a veil was slowly stealing, he shook his head.
Poor little Preston! Not twelve years old, yet growing blind like an old man of ninety!
“But after he is blind, we can help him,”said Dr. A., stroking the boy’s white forehead. “When that dreadful veil, which is stealing over his eyes, has grown thick enough, then we can take it off, and he can see. But it is not thick enough yet. He must go home and wait.”
Dr. Gray was not at all surprised by this. He had known all the while that Preston’s eyes must grow worse before they could be made better. But how long the boy must wait, the oculist could not say; some months, at any rate, and perhaps a year.
It was a sorrowful time for the whole family when Dr. Gray took Preston home with him that night and told the story. Julia put her arms around her dear brother as if she wanted to hold him safe from this trial. Loving Julia! if darkness was coming upon him,shewould surely be, as Uncle Ben had said:
“Like a little candle burning in the night.”
And what would Flaxie be? I am afraid Preston did not expect much of Flaxie, she was such a flyaway child.
She cried bitterly now, and said:
“Oh, I wish ’twasmyeyes, ’cause I’m a naughty little girl; but Preston is splendid!”
Milly didn’t say a word, she only laid her soft cheek against Preston’s hand to let him know she pitied him.
“There, there, don’t feel so bad, all of you,” said he, holding up his head grandly. “I can bear it, you see if I can’t.”
How they all loved him for that! And he did bear it nobly and patiently, and the whole family helped him. That is one comfort of having a father and mother, and brothers and sisters; they always do help you bear your troubles.
“Let’s read to him,” said Milly to Flaxie.So they read,—first one of them, and then the other,—whenever he wished. This would have been very pleasant if he had liked “nice books” such as little girls enjoy; but no, he chose stories of lion-tamers, and sea-serpents, and wild, dreadful Indians.
“Isn’t it just awful?” said Flaxie to Milly; but they read away like young martyrs.
On the whole, as the family was so large, and every member of it so kind, Preston had a very good time, and seldom thought of his eyes.
One day the twin cousins were in the shade of the apple-blossoms, in what was called the “orchard garden,” driving a carriage full of dolls to a “wedding picnic.” Flaxie’s dolls led a very gay life, and perhaps that was one reason they all faded so young.
Just as “Christie Gretchen” was alightingfrom the carriage, assisted by her young husband, “Dr. Preston Smith,” and just as Milly had sweetened the lemonade exactly to the bride’s taste, and was cutting the cake, there was a quick call from Preston.
“Girls, girls, come here?”
“Oh, dear,” said Flaxie to Milly, “when the picnic is beginning so beautifully!”
But then they both remembered that Preston was growing blind and they must be kind to him; therefore Flaxie dropped Dr. Smith, and Milly dropped the cake, and they ran along to the stable.
Before they reached it, however, they had forgotten all about the picnic, for right in the stable-door stood a shaggy mustang pony, harnessed to a basket-phaeton; and in the phaeton sat Preston holding the reins, while Dr. Papa, mamma, and Julia stood looking on and smiling.
“Oh, I never did see anything so cunning,” cried Flaxie, forgetting she had seen several just such ponies when she went to the seaside with Mrs. Prim.
“Whoa! Jump in, both of you,” said Preston, turning the phaeton half round. His face was all aglow with delight.
“Yes, jump in,” said Dr. Papa and mamma.
“It’s Preston’s pony,” cried Julia, who had kept the secret for a whole day and night, till it “seemed as if she should fly.”
The way that gentle little beast walked out of the yard, the way he trotted after he turned into the road! I really cannot give a proper account of it myself; it needs a little girl about Flaxie’s age to describe a pony.
“Oh, he’s a darling, a beauty, the sweetest little thing, not half as big as Whiz! Why, Preston, aren’t you just as happy? Is it your carriage? Where’s the whip? Oh, the silver reins! Didn’t they cost athou-sand dollars? What do you call the pony? May I drive?”