Friend Morris and Mrs. Blake sat rocking on the broad veranda as Mr.
Blake carried Lydia, waving and blowing kisses, across the road.
"Oh, Mother, what is Maggie Medicine?" called Lydia. "Friend Morris, do
you know?"
The ladies laughed and nodded, and Father said, "Listen, Lydia."
There was a sound of crunching gravel and the roll of wheels, and then
round the corner of the house stepped a little dark-brown pony, drawing
a light wicker basket wagon after him, and led by Alexander, who tried
in vain to repress a proud smile.
"This is thy medicine, Friend Lydia," said Friend Morris, coming forward
to the veranda steps, "a medicine that will bring back rosy cheeks to
thee, I hope. Every day thee is to go for a ride--"
But Friend Morris got no farther, for Lydia lurched forward in Father's
arms and caught her round the neck.
"I love thee, Friend Morris," she whispered, "and I love thy medicine.
And I will lend thee Lucy Locket for a whole day, and give thee three
green candies for good luck beside."
"I thank thee, little Quaker," answered Friend Morris with a laugh,
straightening her cap and patting Lydia's cheek. "Now, Alexander has a
lump of sugar for thee to give Maggie, and then he will take thee for a
ride."
So Lydia rather timidly fed Maggie a lump of sugar, and then Alexander
drove her in triumph down the River Road as far as the village, where he
bought a little whip with a red ribbon to be stuck in the front of
Maggie's cart, but never to be used on her, at Lydia's earnest request.
And every pleasant day after that, Lydia went for a drive with Mother or
Father or Alexander. One day Friend Deborah drove Lydia far up a shady
back country road in search of a woman who wove rag rugs. Friend Morris
wanted to order two blue-and-white rugs for the upper hall. The rug
woman stood at her gate as she bargained with Friend Deborah, and Lydia
could only stare at her in amazement, for the woman's hands were bright
blue! She could scarcely wait until Maggie was trotting homeward to ask
Friend Deborah if she had seen them, too.
Friend Deborah laughed.
"It's because she dyes, Lydia," said she.
"Dies?" said Lydia, more puzzled than before.
"Yes, dyes the rags different colors, the rags that she uses for her
rugs," explained Friend Deborah, slapping the reins on Maggie's back.
"Oh," said Lydia, and fell to thinking. This was a piece of news that
must be treasured up for Sammy's delectation. He would enjoy a piece of
work like that. How fascinating to be a different color every day!
So, one afternoon, when Sammy and Mary Ellen walked down from Robin Hill
to play with Lydia, whose ankle was well now, the first thing to be
talked over was the story of the rug woman.
"She lives in a little house all by herself, with three hens and a pig.
Friend Deborah told me. And her hands are bright blue. And she dyes the
rags and makes them into rugs. We have one, and so has Friend Morris,
and Friend Morris is going to have two more."
Lydia stopped, out of breath, and Mary Ellen asked:
"Where does she live? Is it far? Could we go?"
"Oh, it's far up this road," answered Lydia, pointing. "And when you
come to a little bridge, you turn past the mill, and then after a while
you're there."
"I'm going," said Sammy, determined to see the woman with the blue
hands, or perish in the attempt. "I'm going now," and he rose to his
feet. "Want to come?"
"Oh, I do," said Lydia piteously. "I want to go dreadfully, but I can't
walk so far. My lame foot gets so tired."
"We'll carry you," announced Mary Ellen, with a decided air. "Sammy and
I will make a chair of our hands and carry you."
But Sammy had a bright idea. He pointed to the open stable door, and,
out of it, as if to solve their problem for them, walked Maggie
Medicine, harnessed to her cart.
"Quick," said Sammy, "before any one stops us."
"Oh, Sammy, do you think we ought?" asked Mary Ellen in a little voice,
a question that was not meant to be answered, for she had already
boosted Lydia into the cart and was scrambling in herself.
"'Fraid-cats may stay at home. We're a-going," was Sammy's reply, as he
started Maggie down the drive with a shake of the reins and a flourish
of the whip.
And while Maggie Medicine jogs peacefully along the country road,
shaking her head and twitching her ears now and then as a sign to Sammy
to stop jerking the reins, let us see where all the grown people were
this sunny afternoon.
In the first place, Mary Ellen and Sammy had been asked to spend the
afternoon to keep Lydia company, because Father and Mother and Friend
Morris were invited out to spend the day. Friend Deborah, who had gone
about her work all morning with her head tied up in a handkerchief, had
at last been forced to go to bed "to favor the faceache," as she said.
Alexander, to keep the house quiet and give the children a good time,
had planned a drive, but no sooner had he fastened the last strap in
Maggie's harness than word came that the black colt had jumped the
pasture bars and was running away.
So poor patient Alexander was racing up the hot, dusty road in one
direction, while innocent Maggie, with her load, ambled along in the
other. When they came to the little bridge, Maggie saw a cool, shady
back road stretching before her in pleasant contrast to the dusty
highway, and being a wise little pony, she promptly turned in and
trotted briskly past the mill as she had done the week before with
Friend Deborah. Sammy thought it was due to his skillful driving, but
Maggie twitched her ear as if to say, "Don't imagine that I pay any
attention to you children, please."
On they went, until Lydia pointed to a little house, half hidden under
vines, with two or three bedraggled hens scratching about in the front
yard.
"That's it," said Lydia. "I remember it. That's it."
"What shall we say when we see her?" asked Mary Ellen anxiously.
"Goodness, I almost wish we hadn't come."
"We'll ask her for a drink," responded Sammy, never at a loss, whose
sharp eyes had spied a well round the corner of the house. "We'll have a
good look at her hands, too, when she works the bucket."
The children scrambled out of the cart, and leaving Maggie to nibble the
roadside grass, walked into the front yard. The house seemed deserted.
There was no stir of life within doors, and without, the hens stepped
about and pecked at the ground in perfect silence. A hush fell upon the
children. It was not nearly so much fun as they had expected. To tell
the truth, Lydia wished she were at home.
"I smell the pig," whispered Mary Ellen.
Lydia nodded.
Sammy, the venturesome, pushed round the corner of the house, and
beckoned with a grimy hand for them to follow.
"The woodshed," he exclaimed in a stage whisper. "Look, full of things."
On a bench in the woodshed stood a row of kettles, each full of a
colored liquid. Sammy stuck his finger in one and drew it out dripping
with yellow dye.
"Whiz!" muttered Sammy. "Looka!"
In went another finger--this time it came out purple.
"Try it," urged Sammy; "this is great."
The girls shrank away at Sammy's approach. Unfortunately, they leaned
against the bench, and how were they to know that this particular bench
had a weak leg? Over it went, with a frightful clashing and crashing of
kettles, and a perfect flood of gay color streamed over the woodshed
floor, generously splashing shoes and stockings in spite of a hurried
rush outside.
But at the corner of the house, the children almost wished they had
stayed in the woodshed, and allowed themselves to be drowned in a sea of
dye. For a dreadful figure rose before them, a figure whose hands
dripped red, whose face was marked with red, whose apron bore the print
of scarlet hands--and the dripping red hands were shaken angrily at
them, and a hoarse voice called words to them they were too frightened
to hear. It was only the rug woman, summoned by the noise from her task
of re-dipping the faded red church carpet, but the sight of her almost
stopped the children's hearts from beating, and made their breath come
quick.
Sammy, the boaster, he who often bragged that one day he would dispose
single-handed of six red Indian braves on the war-path, even Sammy
quailed, and, with not a thought of his companions, made a dash for
Maggie, gazing over the fence with inquiring eyes, and with one bound
seated himself in the cart. The girls made haste to follow, Mary Ellen
with her arm about Lydia, for the lame ankle had received a cruel
wrench, and tears were rolling down Lydia's cheeks as she hopped and
hobbled and stumbled along in her haste to be gone.
But at last they were safely in the cart, and Maggie, excited no doubt
by Sammy's shouts and the woman's angry cries, broke into a canter that
speedily took them out of sight and sound of the catastrophe. On sped
Maggie, through the hot summer afternoon, past the mill, round the
curve, down the broad road toward home.
And there a short distance from Friend Morris's gate came running toward
them Friend Deborah and Alexander. Poor Friend Deborah held a hand to
her aching face, but she was able to gasp, "Oh, children, how thee has
frightened me!"
"And exasperated me," added truthful Alexander, as his eye traveled from
panting little Maggie, with foam-flecked mouth, to the once neat little
cart, now covered with dust, and badly stained within by spots and
splashes of dye.
Good Quaker that he was, he said no more, but he looked grave as he
listened to the story the children had to tell.
"Has thee stopped to think at all of the trouble and the loss thee has
caused the poor rug woman, who never did thee any harm?" he inquired
soberly.
The children hung their heads and did not answer. At last Mary Ellen,
twisting the end of her braid, murmured, "I will give her my spending
money until I've paid her back," and Sammy nodded in agreement. As they
each had a penny a week for spending money Alexander's lips twitched,
but this the children did not see.
"And look at thy shoes and stockings," said Friend Deborah, who had been
surveying the three culprits as they stood before her. "What must be the
state of thy feet? Will thee ever wash them white again?"
This was too much for Lydia. Her lip had been trembling for some time,
and now the thought of red and green and blue feet upset her completely.
She broke into loud sobs, and cast herself down upon the roadside grass.
"My foot hurts, my foot hurts, and no one loves me." And she buried her
face in the friendly clover, and cried despairingly.
Sammy was winking hard, and Mary Ellen was biting her lip and digging a
hole in the dust with the tip of her strange green and purple shoe.
Alexander's kind heart melted at the sight.
"Ye cannot have gray heads on green shoulders," said he; and as Friend
Deborah carried the weeping Lydia into the house for a bath and bed,
Alexander helped the other two travelers upon a passing wagon and rode
with them to Robin Hill.
Lydia and Mary Ellen and Sammy never knew how Mr. Blake laughed when he
heard the story. He himself went to see the rug woman, and his visit was
so satisfactory that when he left, the rug woman held out her hand,
purple this time, and invited him to come again.
"You are a gentleman, sir," said she, "and you have more than paid for
what I lost. Bring your little girl the next time you come."
But Lydia had no desire to pay that visit.
For a long time, Father's favorite question was, "Lydia, what color feet
do you prefer?" But Lydia could never see anything funny in that joke.
She quite agreed, however, with Friend Morris, who said when she heard
the story:
"I think the most sensible member of the party was Maggie Medicine, who
took thee safely there and back."
And to this Friend Lydia always nodded "yes."