Fritzy’s face showed traces of recent tears, but his valiant air not
even tears could subdue. He stood by Dr. Winslow’s side, affectionately
resting one arm across the gentleman’s shoulder, and with the other
surreptitiously wiping his besmeared and stubby little nose.
The doctor tried to look grave, but the effort resulted only in a
mixed expression of fun and seriousness. To his mind, small Fritzy was
a “delicious child,” infinitely diverting after the many grave cares
which weighed upon the heart of the country physician, to whom each
patient was like an old friend, therefore to be worried over beyond a
mere professional interest in an unknown patient.
The doctor was always glad of an excuse to stop at The Snuggery; but
he had been exceedingly anxious that night, when he had been summoned
thither.
“Luke and Fritz have been shooting folks,” was the breathless message
Octave delivered, having run all the way between houses to give it.
“Shooting folks, Miss Octave! What in the name of common-sense!” and
the kind face had worn an expression of terrible dismay. “Shooting
whom?”
“Oh, nobody but Paula; I don’t believe they hurt her, either, but she
doesn’t seem just right or she won’t talk, and--and--you’ll come right
away, quick, won’t you?”
“At once. Fortunately, the brown mare is already harnessed, for I had
but just come in, and had let her stand to cool off. Jump in with me,
and tell me on the way all about it.”
Octave promptly obeyed, and her tongue flew fast for a few seconds.
When she had finished, the doctor asked, “Has any one been really
wounded?”
“I do not believe so; though Rosetta declares that Paula must be,
somewhere. I think she is terribly frightened, and it has made her
faint. Who wouldn’t be that, to be shot at by a couple of boys, just
because you were walking in your sleep!”
“Who, indeed!” exclaimed the physician, sympathetically, and drove the
faster.
From which it was evident that the burglar-ghost had been only poor
Paula, taking one of her nocturnal, somnambulistic exercises; and that
when Octave had missed her sister from their room, she had set out in
pursuit of her. Likewise had little Christina, who, lying awake on her
own small bed, had seen Paula pass the door, and had sleepily murmured,
“She’s walking again, and I must get up and follow her.” Likewise
Content, who had learned the family habit of care over the unfortunate
victim of somnambulism. Ditto Rosetta, whose burdened soul had never
known peaceful rest since the Kinsolvings went away and left the
“pickles” in her charge.
No wonder that Fritz had seen a “whole yard full of ghosts”; for none
of the pursuers had stopped to cover their white night-robes with
anything less gleaming; and no wonder that each and every female throat
had emitted the shrillest scream of which it was capable, on receiving
an attack from fire-arms.
But “all is well that ends well,” and when the doctor had duly
examined each “spook” separately, he found nothing more serious than
a very bad fright to all, with a faintness on Paula’s part, which was
easily accounted for by the shock of her sudden awaking.
“I’m sure to goodness she is hit some’eres, though,” declared Rosetta,
even in the face of professional assurance to the contrary. “That
little boy has shot more things ’an ye could shake a stick at; he’s
allays a pepperin’ sunthin’; only day afore yisterday he aimed to kill
a chipmonk an’ hit my Plymouth rooster.”
“Stuff and nonsense, Rosetta! That ought to prove to you that he didn’t
hit Paula--since he deliberately aimed at her. Anyway, he only shot a
hole through her very best night-dress, which she had no business to be
wearing every day, and served her right,” cried Octave.
“Is this so, Fritzy?” asked the doctor, despairing of convincing
Rosetta that things were not so terrible after all. “Do you practise
shooting at that rate?”
“Well, I’m kind of out of practice now, but I used to hit a tack,
a carpet tack, forty feet away,” answered the boy, with boastful
assurance.
“Indeed! That was doing well,” exclaimed the amused physician.
Suddenly the boy pulled out a small pistol, and before the doctor quite
comprehended what he was after, aimed at the opposite door and fired.
The bullet missed its mark, but Fritz walked across to the casement,
and examined it with interest. “See? See there? That’s where she went
through!” The grubby little forefinger traced a diminutive crack at the
point where he fancied the bullet had vanished. “Must ha’ gone clear
through!”
“I think it went ‘clear though’--the open window; but, Fritz, I hope
you are not in the habit of carrying fire-arms. It is a very dangerous
thing to do.”
“Well, I never did carry ’em, and I guess I sha’n’t begin now; though
they ain’t any danger. Pooh! It scares Rosetta ’most into fits jest to
see a fire-arm.”
The aged air of experience, and the manly contempt for feminine
weakness was so amusing to the doctor that he felt repaid for his
night’s trouble, just to have witnessed it. However, he decided
to improve the opportunity by exercising the authority which Mrs.
Kinsolving had placed in his hands when she left the Pickels for her
sea-side sojourn. He had not used it theretofore, believing that undue
restriction would only set the active young brains of his charges to
inventing new and possibly more hazardous amusements than any of which
he had heard; but the unrestrained use of rifles and pistols--that must
be suppressed at once.
“You have come near doing great harm by your carelessness, little
Fritz; and, as a reminder of it, I think I shall have to forbid your
using your weapons any more, until some of your relatives return. I am
sorry, but--”
“What makes you do it, then?” demanded Fritz, coolly interrupting
what he foresaw would be a long lecture. If he had to be punished, he
liked to be at once, and have done with it. He didn’t like long-drawn
ceremonies of any sort.
“For the good of the world at large,” answered the physician; “now you
skip to bed; and I would advise that you sleep in your own apartment.
I don’t think Luke is the best intimate you could have found.”
The mention of Luke brought the full force of the doctor’s punishment
to mind. “You mean--you mean I can’t go hunting woodchucks to-morrow?”
“Not a woodchuck,” laughed the doctor; but Fritz saw that the laugh
covered a firm decision. His face fell as it had not done, even when
bathed in tears over his possible wounding of his sister. Girls,
in Fritz’s estimation, were as plenty and about as valuable as
blackberries; but--woodchucks! The tears with which he burrowed his
curly head into his pillow five minutes later were bitter indeed.
Having convinced himself that nobody had suffered real damage, and
having given Paula a simple restorative for her startled nerves, the
weary physician rode away, and left the household at The Snuggery to
get what rest it could.
But Octave could not sleep. There was that upon her mind which
prevented. Yet this unusual state of things was not occasioned by
any anxiety about Paula, or that evening’s experience. Finally, to
lie still became impossible, and, rising, she wrapped herself in the
counterpane from the bed she now enjoyed alone, since Paula, at the
doctor’s suggestion, had been promoted to the honor of occupying
“grandmother’s room.” There she could sleep undisturbed as late as
nature craved the rest. “After a good sleep she will be as fresh as
new,” the doctor had told them.
So, in her lonely chamber, by the light of one candle, Octave prepared
to unburden herself of her great “Mystery.”
Her fingers trembled so that she could hardly write, and her
heart-beats were so loud she fancied that all the family must hear
them. She began, without prelude, other than the conventional “Dear
Aunt Ruth”:--
The great surgeon is to come here to-morrow. I didn’t know it till
to-day, but he has been unexpectedly called back to Germany, and if
he doesn’t come now, Melville’s chance is gone forever. Perhaps it is
as well so as any way, though I did want to have time to prepare your
mind a little, for you do worry so.
And all this dreadful night, when Fritzy has been shooting Paula,
there has lain poor Melville alone, and contemplating--to-morrow!
I’ve been with him as much as I could without making Rosetta ask
questions; but it was hard to manage. Of course, I couldn’t go in
there without putting my dress on, and as fast as I would get it on
Rosetta would come in and say, “Go to bed, deary. You can’t do a mite
o’ good,” in that motherly way of hers, till I thought I should just
fly. Then, when I did get a chance to slip in to him, Melville would
upbraid me for having no heart. I begged of him to let me tell the
rest of the folks, but he wouldn’t, not till morning, for he says,
and I should say the same, that he couldn’t bear to have them talk
about it, as they would be sure to; who, indeed, could help it?
Dear me! I’m as bad as Rosetta, about punctuation and all that. But I
am so excited, I don’t know which end my head is on; of course that
is unladylike to say, but you know what I mean. The surgeon is coming
at ten o’clock. He is going to bring his own assistants with him. He
hopes for it to be a success; because, when that young man came up
and made the examination, he agreed with Fritzy Nunky, that Melville
could be helped; that he was not really incurable, but it would only
be by one operation and that a severe one. Fritzy Nunky is at the
bottom of it; and I am in the middle; but Melville is at the top. You
see it is he that has to suffer, either being a cripple all his life,
or having something or other cut, which will let him walk some time,
after he has learned how. Uncle says he will have to learn just as a
baby does; but won’t I just be willing to teach him!
That boy really has developed wonderfully, during the time he has
been under my supervision. And he is behaving like a little hero,
this very minute. Then the best part of it is that he is to be famous
and heroic all at one and the same time. The last letter he had from
Professor von Holsneck he said that every experiment but one had been
successful. The professor is most enthusiastic; and I am so proud,
because it was I who introduced him to the family. Of course, if
anything goes wrong, I shall telegraph; but if you don’t hear from me
in that way, you will know that the operation is a success.
I can’t write any more now, for my candle has burned out, and I
have it “borne in on me” that I should go to Melville. Oh, I forgot.
I haven’t told you but half the “Mystery” yet; but you will have to
wait, for there goes the candle!
The letter had no signature; and it needed none. No one save Octave
could have written it.
But by the same mail which carried it another was sent. This, composed
by Content, had something more of lucidity, if also more that was
startling.
The letter tells the story of what had been going on at The Snuggery
better than it could otherwise be told.
DEAR AUNT RUTH:
This morning, at ten o’clock, a carriage drove up to our gate and out
of it there stepped three gentlemen. Octave had just frightened us
all nearly to death by telling us that Melville was this morning to
undergo an operation to see if his limbs could not be straightened.
The operation was considered a simple one, though it is comparatively
a new one; and only one German surgeon has as yet performed it
successfully. That surgeon is a friend of Mr. Pickel; and “Uncle
Fritz” persuaded him to come up here and operate on Melville. This
was at Melville’s own request, and it was something which could be
done here as well as in a hospital.
There was a trained woman nurse, and one of the three men is also a
trained nurse, and he is to stay here until Melville is quite well
again. The others were doctors, and Dr. Winslow was here with another
physician from the village. Octave stayed in the room all the time;
and the only sign she showed of being frightened was when they called
for Rosetta’s long ironing-table, and carried that into Melville’s
sitting-room. She turned so white then that I thought she would
faint, and I ran to her; but she put me away at once. “Don’t! I am
all right!” she said; and she seemed to be, but I couldn’t have done
it. As for Paula, she is in bed recovering from her shot-at episode.
Christina has taken Fritz and gone away into the woods, and Rosetta
is crying in the kitchen, or she was the last time I saw her.
This is part of the great MYSTERY which Melville and Octave have had;
and it has all turned out splendidly. The operation is, as far as
they can judge, a perfect success; and words cannot tell you how glad
Melville is; but I don’t believe he is half as glad as Octave. That
girl just beams! They didn’t tell you on account of grandma; and even
Mr. Pickel didn’t know when it was to be, though he has written heaps
of letters and arranged everything as far as he could, being absent.
The other part, the Professor von Holsneck part is, as far as I
understand it, like this: Melville has always been fond of messing
with chemicals and weeds and things on that queer invalid table of
his. All his experiments have had but one end in view; and that one
such as a boy who has suffered so much would value the most. He
wanted to cure pain. If he could not cure it, at least to ease it;
and he has accomplished the most wonderful thing!
But, there is Octave calling. I do hope that nothing has happened!
Luke is just going to the village, so I will send this right along,
and write some more to-morrow.
Good by, in loving haste,
CONTENT.