SOMETHING TO REMEMBER
Warren stood a moment in indecision. Rosemary's pallor frightened him
and she was evidently concealing something. Sarah and Shirley glanced
at him hostilely as though, he thought resentfully, he was in some way
to blame.
He turned on his heel and ran over to the mill, shutting the door with
a resounding slam. In a trice he had snapped the padlock and had come
back to the three girls huddled under the tree.
And then a cheerful whistle sounded and down the lane came the one
person Rosemary least desired to see at that moment--Doctor Hugh.
"Got through early!" he called, vaulting the fence and striding toward
them. "Why, Rosemary! What's wrong?"
Rosemary made a desperate effort to recover her self-control. She
managed a shaky smile, but she did not dare try to stand.
"Perhaps you can find out," said Warren grimly. "I found her like this
a few minutes ago and Shirley and Sarah looking as though they'd seen a
ghost; and not a word will any of 'em say."
Very coolly, very quietly, very firmly, Doctor Hugh lifted Sarah aside
and took her place beside Rosemary on the crate. He rested the tips of
his fingers for a moment on the slender wrist nearest him. Then--
"What frightened you. Rosemary?" he asked evenly.
The touch of his skilled fingers seemed to slow down her hammering
pulse. Rosemary's troubled gaze swept the circle of faces surrounding
her, Sarah's and Shirley's expressive of their anxiety lest she be
"sick," Warren's baffled and worried, and came back to the steady,
understanding dark eyes behind the doctor's glasses. In that moment
Hugh became a tower of refuge to her and she suddenly knew what she
would do.
"I don't know what made me act like this," she apologized, a little
tinge of color creeping into her white face. "I'm sorry, because I am
afraid I have made you think it is worse than it is."
She stopped and looked at Sarah who stared at her in a puzzled way.
"You won't want me to tell, Sarah dear," went on Rosemary, still
calmly, "but this time I think I'd better; because--well, because if
there should be a next time and you should hurt yourself, I should be
to blame. Besides, there is Shirley."
Warren drew a deep breath and Doctor Hugh sent a look toward Sarah that
made that young person decidedly uncomfortable though she pretended to
be absorbed in the antics of a beetle and sat down, cross-legged, to
consider it.
"Then it was the windmill?" asked Warren.
"Yes, it was the windmill," nodded Rosemary, putting her arm around
Shirley who was beginning to feel that her adored older sister had for
once deserted her.
And then she told them, graphically and in detail, how she had found
the two children on the platform and of the climbs she had made to
bring them down safely.
"That part wasn't so bad, really it wasn't," she explained earnestly.
"Though when Sarah's foot slipped--"
Warren looked at Doctor Hugh.
"But I keep thinking of that awful platform!" cried Rosemary, hiding
her face against her brother's shoulder and tightening her arm about
Shirley. "Every time I close my eyes I can see them there--and it is
such a narrow space and they could have fallen off so easily--"
"Stop!" said Doctor Hugh sternly. "Stop that at once, Rosemary. You
are letting your imagination run away with you. Closing your eyes and
thinking what might have happened, will not do at all. You'll get the
better of your nerves, if you try. Don't think what has happened and,
above all, don't talk about it. Tag around after Warren and Rich
to-day and keep so busy you haven't time to think--you'll find the
worst is over now that you have told us."
Rosemary lifted her head. She was quite herself, her blue eyes told
Warren. Under her arm, Shirley peeped uncertainly at her brother.
"Come around here where I can see you, Shirley," he commanded.
She obeyed disconsolately.
"You were there when Warren said that you must not go in the windmill,
weren't you?" said Doctor Hugh. "And now you see what happens when you
disobey him. I understand that Sarah suggested this disobedience, but
that doesn't excuse you, Shirley; there have been plenty of times when
you have refused to do as Sarah asked you to. You didn't have to be
naughty because she was, did you?"
Shirley shook her head.
"I know you're sorry," her brother went on. "Then tell Warren so--and
next time, Shirley, have a mind and will of your own when you are asked
to do something you know is wrong."
Warren accepted Shirley's apology gravely and then made a suggestion.
"I'm going over to the mill with the heavy wagon," he said, "and if you
want to come along, I'll take you. I'll harness up now and let the
team stand till after dinner."
Sarah scrambled to her feet with the evident intention of including
herself in the invitation.
"Run along, Rosemary," directed Doctor Hugh, "and take Shirley with
you. But I want to talk to you, Sarah."
Rosemary glanced back as she walked away with Warren.
"Poor Sarah!" she said. "I'm so sorry and I know Hugh is going to
scold. But oh, Warren, I think I did right."
"Sure," agreed Warren tersely. He had been more shaken by her recital
than he cared to admit.
"I couldn't have given Sarah away like that, if it hadn't been for
Shirley," said Rosemary, her eyes now on the infinitely dear little
figure dancing ahead. "Sarah asked me not to tell and I said I
wouldn't--and I never have before. Once she lost Aunt Trudy's ring and
we all got in an awful mess, but we wouldn't tell. Hugh said then it
was wrong and not being truly kind to Sarah.
"I didn't see it that way--then," confessed Rosemary. "But
to-day--well, to-day, Sarah frightened me so! And I thought that if I
kept still and said nothing, next time she might hurt herself or
Shirley--when she makes up her mind, she can persuade Shirley to do
anything. And Sarah goes a little bit further every time, unless she
is stopped."
"If you are fretting about whether you did the right thing or not,
forget it," Warren advised her seriously. "In the first place, your
brother would have had the truth from you in five minutes and in the
second place shielding Sarah when she is in a fair way to break her
neck unless someone interferes, isn't far from wicked, to my way of
thinking."
"But she trusts me," urged Rosemary. "Suppose I have lost her
confidence?"
"You haven't," said Warren with conviction. "More likely, you've
gained her respect."
Sarah was never to forget the talk with Doctor Hugh that morning. He
sat down beside her on the grass and gravely and kindly, without
raising his voice or threatening punishment, made her see what she had
done.
"You were angry at me and you wanted to do something to 'get even,'
Sarah," he began. "And to satisfy that miserable little desire to get
even, you would have let serious injury, perhaps worse, come to Shirley
and Rosemary--Shirley who would follow you anywhere and Rosemary who
loves you so much she would dare anything for you."
Ignoring her tears and protests, he spoke to her of the responsibility
of an older sister for a younger one and explained the far-reaching
consequences of temper and disobedience.
"You have frightened Rosemary and you have disappointed me," he said
sadly. "We both thought that head-strong and willful and reckless as
you are, you would always take care of Shirley. How can we ever trust
her to you again?"
"I didn't think she would get hurt," wept Sarah. "I do take care of
her."
"My dear little sister--" Doctor Hugh took her in his arms and the
stolid Sarah clung to him crying as though her heart would break. "My
dear, dear little sister, it is because I want you to always think
first, before you do something wrong, that I am talking to you like
this. Shirley admires you--when you do the right thing, she will try
to imitate you even more readily than when you do wrong. You are
constantly setting her an example."
He let her cry a little while and then supplied her with his clean
pocket handkerchief. With her flushed face pressed against his coat,
Sarah listened while he explained gently the old, old lessons and laws
that govern us all.
"Remember this, Sarah," he concluded earnestly, "you may think, when
you do wrong, that you will take all the punishment yourself, but you
can not; no one can bear the consequences of a misdeed wholly alone.
Every time you do wrong you hurt someone else, two or three others,
perhaps, and usually those who love you most."
Sarah was only nine years old, but she understood. Doctor Hugh had a
faculty for making people understand him. He slipped his hand under
Sarah's chin now and lifted the little brown face till the shamed dark
eyes met his.
"Am I to trust you again, Sarah?" he asked gravely.
The little brown face grew vivid, resolution and love contending for
possession of the dark eyes.
"I will be _just_ as good!" promised Sarah. "Truly I will, Hugh."
And they sealed the compact with a kiss.