CHAPTER V
A STARTLING REVELATION
The girl chums were speechless, staring at the flushed face of the woman before them.
If it had not been for Mrs. Jameson, smiling behind the invalid's chair, they might have thought Miss Harrison was still suffering from shock and unable to comprehend the staggering importance of this statement.
Why, for years, Emma Harrison had been confined to her chair, the lower part of her body absolutely helpless. Yet just now she had said, and with every appearance of sincerity, that only a short time before she had actually stood upon her feet!
"Aunt Emma!" cried Nan incredulously, "do you know what you are saying?"
"Oh, I can't blame you for not believing me," replied Miss Emma, speaking in the same swift, excited manner. "I don't know how I did it. I don't even know that I could do it again. But one thing I do know—that for a moment I stood unaided, firmly, upon my two feet!"
"That's wonderful!" cried Jo eagerly. "If you did it once, you can surely do it again if you try."
"But not for some time yet," protested Mrs. Jameson, fearful lest the enthusiasm of the girls lead the invalid on to a second and unwise attempt to try her new power. "Your aunt has had a very dreadful experience, Nan, and I think what she now needs most is rest and quiet. I propose, with your mother's consent, to keep her with me for the night."
"You are always so kind," Nan said gratefully. "I think it would be best not to try to move her again to-night, especially back to our dismal, smoke-grimed house," and she grimaced distastefully at thought of what her family would have to put up with until the chimney could be repaired and the traces of smoke erased.
"I think you had all better stay here for the night," Mrs. Jameson suggested hospitably. "Hurry home and see what your mother says, my dear. Mr. Jameson and I will be glad to have you."
This was evidently dismissal, and all three girls thought they could guess the reason for it.
Aunt Emma was as eager as a child to discuss her wonderful experience—the fact that after all these years she had been able, if only for a moment, to stand unaided upon her feet.
As for the girls, a flood of queries trembled upon their tongues. If permitted, they would have questioned the invalid far more than was good for her. Mrs. Jameson saw this and was bent upon placing both them and Miss Emma beyond the reach of temptation.
But before they went the invalid called Jo over to her.
"You are a good brave girl," she said, holding Jo's sunburned hand in hers for a moment. "If there is anything you want very much, ever, let me know and I will get it for you if it is at all within my power."
On impulse Jo bent down and kissed the flushed cheek.
"Just get well! That's all I ask of you!" she said.
When they were out in the street again, having said good-bye to Mrs. Jameson, the girls were somewhat thoughtful.
"Do you think your Aunt Emma will ever be able to walk again?" asked Sadie Appleby. "Do you think it meant anything, her standing alone there for a moment when she heard Jo's voice?"
"I don't know," Nan returned slowly. "She was excited, of course, and soon afterward she fainted. There might have been a good deal of imagination in what she said."
"I don't think so." Jo shook her head and her brow was creased in an effort to think clearly. "I was half-blinded by the smoke and it was dark in the room when I stumbled across your Aunt Emma's chair, Nan. A moment later I felt my arms about some one, but I can't tell for the life of me whether that some one was standing up or seated in the chair. I took it for granted that she was sitting down—but I might have been mistaken."
"Well, anyway, it will do a lot of good if she only thinks she can use her feet," Nan decided. "It will give her hope, and that's what she has been without for a good long time. Poor Aunt Emma!"
The girl chums had come by this time to the Harrison house. There were lights inside and Nan could see that her father and mother had reached home and had learned of the damage done during their absence.
"You can come in for a few minutes and say hello to Mother, can't you?" Nan urged, but the other girls demurred.
"I'll have to run along or the folks will think I'm lost, strayed, or stolen for good this time," Sadie laughed.
"Same here!" Jo's face was sober, almost sad, and Nan thought she knew what was wrong.
"You're worrying about Laurel Hall, Jo," she said sympathetically. "But don't get too blue. There must be a way out, if only we can find it."
"If only we can find it!" repeated Jo, with a wry little twist of her lips. "So long, Nan. See you to-morrow."
As Sadie and Jo went on toward the center of town where they lived on the same street in houses across one from the other, they were both subdued and thoughtful.
"It's hard luck for us all." Sadie spoke the thought that she knew was in Jo's mind too. "Just when we had come so close to it! Why, Jo, do you realize that in two weeks we were to start for Laurel Hall?"
Jo gave a little laugh that was part sob.
"I haven't been realizing anything else since last night!" she said.
The girls reached Jo's gate and lingered before it a moment, turning their faces to the crisp evening breeze.
Suddenly Jo caught Sadie's hand in hers and squeezed it passionately.
"You're going—you and Nan!" she said in a fierce little whisper. "I'm not a—a dog in the manger, Sade!"
There was the noise of a clicking gate latch and Jo sped up the path to the house.
Sadie sighed and made her way slowly across the road to her own home. The pleasant aroma of cooking things greeted her from the open door. It was then that Sadie made a discovery. For the first time in her healthy young life she had lost her appetite!
The news of Jo's heroism had reached home before her. Mrs. Morley, a plump, comfortable woman of forty, greeted her daughter at the door with a flood of proud, motherly questions.
Jo, who was feeling suddenly very weary and discouraged, almost on the point of tears, answered apathetically:
"There wasn't anything to my part of it, Mother dear, really." She followed her mother to the pleasantly lighted dining room. "The Jameson man thinks the chimney was clogged up or that part of it fell in, smothering the fires in the grates and driving the smoke out into the house," she continued. "There wasn't any great damage done. Probably in a day or two the Harrisons will forget that it ever happened."
She looked about the cheerful dining room. Food was set on the table—tempting food, the kind her efficient, comfortable mother always provided—but Mr. Morley was nowhere to be seen.
"Hasn't Dad come home yet?" asked Jo, as she glanced without enthusiasm at the tempting viands.
Mrs. Morley's rosy face clouded. She looked worried and harassed and her fingers twitched nervously at the corners of her napkin.
"He is down at the office, trying to straighten things out——"
At the sound of the opening door she broke off suddenly and put a finger to her lips.
"Here he is now," she said in a low voice. "We must try to cheer him, Jo dear. He has a great deal to worry him these days."
Jo looked up as her father came slowly and heavily into the room. She was surprised and shocked to see how dreadfully he had aged in the past twenty-four hours. How could so short a time work so much mischief?
With a dazed expression Mr. Morley's eyes wandered about the familiar room. He seemed hardly to see his wife and daughter who looked at him with compassionate eyes. He appeared old—old and broken.
Suddenly Jo forgot herself in pity for her father.
She sprang to her feet and put an arm about him and pushed him gently into his chair.
"Poor old Dad!" she said softly. "You've had a pretty rough time of it, haven't you? I—we're so sorry, dear."