NOT THE END OF IT.
THE moment Dr. Field arrived, Pollio set up a perfect howl. The doctor
was a cross-looking man, with black eyebrows that met over his nose,
and the children had always been afraid of him. Pollio said once he
“couldn’t see his eyes, his _eye-bushes_ were so fick.”
“You need not fancy this boy’s brain is injured,” said Dr. Field. “You
see he knows me, and dislikes me as much as ever.”
He smiled sadly as he spoke; for he was sorry to be disliked.
“The colt has bruised his back a little; but I cannot tell how much
till he stops screaming. I think I will go away now, and come again
when he is calmer.”
Everybody but mamma left the room; and they tried to keep the house
quiet, or as quiet as they could on Fourth of July. Billy Barstow had
turned his colt into the meadow, and was pacing the dining-room in
great distress, with no head on his shoulders but his own. The wolf’s
head was in the stable-yard, and the dog was smelling at it, and
wondering to what tribe it belonged.
“How’s Pollio?” was Billy’s question of everybody he saw. “O Eliza!
mayn’t I go up and listen at the keyhole? I want to see if I can hear
him groaning.”
“Hush! You’ve done enough mischief for one day, Billy Barstow!—knocking
the senses out of that dear little innocent child! There’s no knowing
as he’ll ever speak again,” sobbed Eliza.
“Billy, you mustn’t ’sturb my Pollio,” said little Posy sternly.
“Come here to me, you darling precious Posy!” said Eliza, seizing the
pale child in her arms. “Don’t you want some jelly?”
This was Eliza’s idea of “pacifying children.” But Posy was too
wretched to care for jelly.
When Pollio had been left alone with his mother for an hour or so, he
grew calmer. She bathed his head, but did not talk, except to say in a
soothing tone,—
“Poor little Pollio! Mamma’s little Pollio!”
“O mamma!” said he, speaking for the first time, “I don’t feel as well
as I used to.”
“No, dear, we all know it.”
“The wolf stepped on me,—with a cap on.”
“The wolf was only Billy Barstow, dear.”
“Well, but it hurt,” cried Pollio, hiding his head in the bed-clothes.
When the doctor came again, he found his little patient better than he
had expected.
“But,” said he, “we can’t tell even yet how much his back is injured.
Keep him very quiet, and don’t let him sit up for a day or two.”
“O doctor! wait a minute, doctor!” cried Billy, catching the good man
by the coat-tail as he passed through the hall. “Is he hurt bad? Just
tell me _how_ bad he’s hurt!”
The doctor wasn’t a very patient man, and he fairly glared on the boy.
“Well, he isn’t killed; but he might have been. Don’t you ever let me
hear of your frightening a baby again, Billy Barstow.”
But, when Billy cried, the doctor softened a little, and said it wasn’t
so dreadful, after all; for Pollio was likely to be quite well in a
few days. So Billy wiped his eyes, and ran off to help about firing
a cannon: but he didn’t have as much fun as he had expected; he had
spoiled the day for himself as well as for Pollio.
Poor Pollio! He lay on his white bed in his pretty chamber, pale and
fretful, seeing no one but Nunky, aunt Ann, and mamma.
“I want my Posy!”
“No, dear: she would forget, and jump up on the bed.”
“Then I want my Teddy.”
“See this!” said mamma: “it is a picture-book Billy Barstow just sent
you.”
But it happened to be the story of Red Riding Hood; and Pollio threw
away the book with a shudder.
“I’m going to bring in the little clock from my room, and set it on the
mantel, so he can watch the hands,” said aunt Ann.
“It isn’t hands, it’s fingers,” said Pollio, determined not to be
pleased.
“Well, fingers, then.”
Aunt Ann was a small lady, with a pleasant voice and sweet smile. Posy
looked like her. She set the clock on the mantel; and it was a comfort
to Pollio, for it gave him a chance to ask endless questions.
“What makes the long finger go faster than the little finger? What time
is it now? What time will it be in five minutes? What time will it be
to-morrow morning?”
Aunt Ann replied to all these foolish inquiries very kindly, and told
Mrs. Pitcher she thought Pollio must be better, or he would not wish to
talk.
“Yes, mamma, I’m all better,” said Pollio, his black eyes shining
brightly. “My back gave one great sting, and then stopped. Now I want
to get up.”
“But, my little love, the doctor says you must lie still.”
“_He_ don’t know. You didn’t tell him ’bout my fire-crackers. Got a
million of ’em; _must_ fire ’em off! I don’t like Dr. Field, with his
great black eye-bushes. And it’s Fourf of July too!”
Presently there was another wail. Pollio had thought of the fireworks
which were to go up that evening from the top of Tower Hill.
“Great red rockets just like stars! O mamma! Posy’ll go, and Teddy’ll
go. I _must_ put my clo’es on and get up.”
Nunky whispered to mamma that she might as well let the child try to
sit up, as he probably could not do it.
Nunky was right. The moment Pollio was raised in bed, his head felt
very strangely. He thought the clock and pictures began to dance, while
the bed spun round like a top.
Mamma laid his head back on the pillow, and sponged his face with cold
water; and then the room and the things in it stood still, and he felt
better.
Nunky was not at all surprised to see him so weak, but it grieved his
mother. He did not ask again to sit up, but lay twisting his fingers,
and thinking what a long day it was.
“Oh, dear! what made God make me, mamma? I’m tired of being made.”
Pollio knew just as well as you do that he had been a naughty boy, and
that he was suffering for it. He disliked himself exceedingly; and I
think that was one reason he was so cross, and begged his aunt Ann to
go away.
“Aren’t you willing mamma should leave you a while, and lie down?”
asked Nunky, who saw that she looked pale.
“Yes, I guess so, if you’ll play ‘The Shepherd’s Pipe,’” replied
Pollio, scowling; for he could not bear to look pleasant a moment.
When he had made Nunky play “The Shepherd’s Pipe” till he was quite out
of breath, Pollio said, “Fank you,” and pulled a lock of front-hair
without raising his head from the pillow.
Nunky smiled to see, that, sick and cross as he was, he did not forget
his manners.
“Well, my little general, is there any thing else I can do for you?”
“You may show me some o’ your pictures.”
Nunky brought two landscapes from his studio. One was a brook half
hidden by bushes, and so natural that you could almost see the leaves
and grass flutter, and the water slip bubbling over the stones.
“Rocky Brook!” cried Pollio, clapping his hands.
He had “tagged” Dick to that brook many a time when Dick went trouting.
“Wish I could dip my feet right in there!” sighed he. “Oh, please give
me a drink o’ water!”
Somehow the picture made him thirsty. The next one was of Yellowstone
Falls, which came tumbling down so fast you could almost hear them
rumble.
“Oh, splendid!” exclaimed Pollio. “Can’t I have some cream beer?”
For the falls reminded him of something foamy to drink. Nunky kindly
brought him some sarsaparilla-mead, wondering what would be wanted next.
“More pictures, Nunky: I mean, _please_!”
Nunky brought another beautiful painting, which he placed against the
foot-board of the bed.
“Oh! Jesus talking to the woman. Isn’t it splendid? Did he always look
so sober, Nunky?”
“No, I presume not.”
“Well, I don’t fink he did, ’cept when little children were naughty, or
Jerusalem got out of order,” remarked Pollio, glancing at an engraving
on the wall called “Christ weeping over Jerusalem.” Of course Jerusalem
must have “got out of order,” or he would not have wept over it.
Pollio moved his head on the pillow uneasily. He remembered that he,
too, had “got out of order;” and he did not like to look at that
beautiful, sad face at the foot of the bed, for it seemed to know and
feel sorry he had been so naughty.
“Wish you’d take that picture away, _please_!” said Pollio, twisting
his mouth as if in pain.
“Why, what’s the matter, General?”
“Wish I’d runned away! Wish I _had_ runned away!” groaned the child,
in such a tone of anguish that Nunky began to fear he was losing his
reason.
“Wish you’d runned away? Why, I should think you’d had trouble enough
for one day, without wishing for more.”
“Wish I’d runned away from the ‘Finny-castics’—_there_! They kep’
a-comin’, and I kep’ a-stayin’. That’s why I got stepped on, ’cause I
kep’ a-stayin’.”
“Yes, I don’t doubt you are right, General: if you had not staid, you
would not have been stepped on. But how did you happen to be in the
street?”
“I was hunting for the disappearance of my lost b’loon,” said Pollio,
who still used large words in the wrong place sometimes.
“Well, did you find the disappearance?”
“Yes, sir. But ’twas all busted up, sticking on the fence; and I lost
it again. Oh, dear! I ought to not gone, and I ought to not staid, and
I ought to not—where’s mamma?”
“Asleep, I hope. What do you want of her?”
“Well, I—I want to ask her, ‘Will she forgive me?’”
“Do you? That’s a very good question to ask. And here she comes,” said
Nunky, slipping out of the room; for he had waited upon cross Pollio
for four hours, and needed rest.
Pollio confessed his naughtiness, and his mother forgave him at once.
Did you ever hear of a mother that wouldn’t forgive her darling child?
“O mamma! I sha’n’t ever do anyfing bad any more,” said Pollio, laying
his little brown cheek against hers, so glad his sins were over for
life. “I felt awful bad, and that was why I wanted that water and that
cream beer; but it didn’t do me any good. But now—O mamma!”
“What, dear?”
“If I only had some lemonade!”
“But I dare not give it to you, my child. Won’t you try to be happy
without it?”
“Yes, mamma,” sighed Pollio. “I’ll be happy if I can see my Posy. But,
if I don’t see her pretty soon, I’m afraid I’ll die!”
This touched his mother’s heart, and she called Nunky to send for Posy.
The little girl entered the room with a look of the deepest grief on
her little face; but Pollio said bravely, as Nunky lifted her up to
kiss him,—
“Poh, I’d twice as rather get hurt than have _you_, Posy! I’m a _boy_!”
Posy’s only answer was to stroke his cheek softly, and sob.
“That wolf stepped on me, that’s all. Don’t cry, Posy! No, ’twas Billy
Barstow—I mean the colt.”
“Naughty fing! I don’t like Fourfs of July!” said the gentle sister,
not quite sure whether to blame the colt, the wolf, or Billy.
“O Nunky! won’t you set her up on the bed side o’ me?” said Pollio, who
found her remarks very consoling.
“I’ve lost my b’loon Posy: where’s yours?”
“Well, I didn’t lost mine: a hole came into it.”
“Where’s Teddy’s?”
“A hole camed into Teddy’s.”
“What!” cried Nunky, “those three balloons all spoiled in one day!”
“Whew! that’s mean!” said Pollio. “But then,” added he, brightening,
“now you won’t feel so bad any more, Nunky, if you _didn’t_ have any
b’loons when you were a little boy; for _they don’t pay_.”
Nunky laughed, and called Pollio “a little comforter.”
Pollio thought he might eat some supper, if Posy would feed him: so
mamma, wishing to please the sick boy, tucked a napkin under his chin,
spread a table-cloth on the bed, and gave him a silver waiter with dry
toast, plum-preserves, and sponge-cake.
Of course the children spilled milk, and dropped crumbs; but they
were as happy as a pair of nestlings till Pollio suddenly swallowed a
plum-stone.
“O mamma! you pat him on the back while I pray,” cried Posy, clasping
her hands. “Don’t you be afraid, Pollio. I prayed when Teddy got
choked, and _he_ didn’t die; and I’ll pray for you now, and _you_ won’t
die.”
Pollio was soon relieved, but his little sister would give him no more
plums.
“Mamma, won’t you please stop making plum-preserves?” said she
anxiously. “It keeps me praying all the time.”
Pollio thought he should be very wretched if he could not see the
fireworks; but, when Posy declared she would not go without him, he
was consoled. And indeed, before it was time for the rockets to go up,
both the children were fast asleep, their heads on the same pillow, and
their arms around each other’s necks.
Thus ended Pollio’s Fourth of July; but I am sorry to say it was not
the end of his illness.
Here is a rhyme that Nunky chanted over to him just for fun:—
“Saddled and bridled and booted rode he,
Wolf’s head on his shoulders, tin pan on his knee:
Home came the saddle, and home came the pan;
But where is the wolf that rode like a man?”