A TIME FOR PATIENCE.
THEY thought at first that she was hiding in the barn, afraid to come
out, lest Molly might be lying in wait to grab her. So they began
calling: "Come on, Lloyd! King's X! King's excuse! Home free! You may
come home free!" But there was no answer, and Betty, suddenly
remembering the trap-door, grew white with fear.
The children played in the barn so much that Mr. Appleton's first order,
when he hired a new man, was that the trap-door must always be closed
and fastened the moment he finished pitching the hay down to the manger
below. The children themselves had been cautioned time and again to keep
away from it, but Lloyd, never having played in the barn before, was not
aware of its existence.
"Lloyd, Lloyd!" called Betty, hurrying into the twilight of the big
barn. There was no answer, and peering anxiously ahead, Betty saw that
the trap-door was open, and on the floor below was the gleam of the
Little Colonel's light pink dress, shining white through the dusk.
Betty's startled cry brought the other children, who clattered down the
barn stairs after her, into the straw-covered circle where the young
calves were kept. They met Mr. Appleton, coming in from the corn-crib
with a basket on his shoulder, and all began to talk at once. The words
"Lloyd" and "trap-door" were all he could distinguish in the jumble of
excited exclamations, but they told the whole story.
Hastily dropping his basket, he strode across to the manger that Betty
pointed out, with a look of grave concern on his face. They all crowded
breathlessly around him as he bent over the quiet little figure, lifting
it gently in his arms. It was a solemn-faced little company that
followed him up the hill with his unconscious burden. A cold fear seized
Betty as she walked along, glancing at the Little Colonel's closed eyes,
and the tiny stream of blood trickling across the still white face.
"Oh, if godmother were only here!" she groaned.
"There's no telling how badly Lloyd is hurt. Maybe she'll be a cripple
for life. Oh, I wish I'd never heard of such a game as Barley-bright."
If the accident had happened at Locust, a doctor would have been
summoned to the spot, as fast as telephones and swift horses could bring
him, and the whole household would have held its breath in anxiety. But
very little fuss was made over accidents at the Cuckoo's Nest. It was a
weekly occurrence for some of the children to be brought in limp and
bleeding from various falls. Bradley had once sprained his neck turning
somersaults down the hay-mow, so that he had not been able to look over
his shoulder for two weeks. Scott had been picked up senseless twice,
once from falling out of the top of a walnut-tree, and the other time
because a high ladder broke under him. Every one of the boys but Pudding
had at some time or another left a trail of blood behind him from barn
to house as he went weeping homeward with some part of his body to be
bandaged. So Lloyd's fall did not cause the commotion it might have done
in a less adventurous family.
"Oh, she's coming around all right," said Mr. Appleton, cheerfully, as
her head stirred a little on his shoulder, and she half opened her eyes.
"Here you are," he added a moment later, laying her on the bed in the
parlour. "Scott, run call your mother. Bring a light, Molly. We'll soon
see what is the matter."
There were no bones broken, and in a little while Lloyd sat up, white
and dizzy. Then she walked across the room, and looked at herself in the
little mirror hanging over a shelf, on which stood a bouquet of stiff
wax flowers. It was hung so high and tilted forward so much, and the wax
flowers were in the way, so that she could not get a very satisfactory
view of her wounds, but she saw enough to make her feel like an old
soldier home from the wars, with the marks of many battles upon her.
A bandage wet with arnica was tied around her head, over a large knot
that was rapidly swelling larger. Several strips of court-plaster
covered the cut on her temple. One cheek was scratched, and she was
stiff and sore from many bruises.
"But not half so stiff as you'll be in the morning," Mrs. Appleton
assured her, cheerfully. "All that side of your body that struck against
the manger is black and blue."
"I think I'll go to bed," said the Little Colonel, faintly. "This day
has been long enough, and I don't want anything else to happen to me.
Fallin' through a trap-doah and havin' my mothah leave me is enough fo'
one while. I think I need her moah than Aunt Jane does. You'll have to
sleep with me to-night, Betty. I wouldn't stay down heah alone fo'
anything."
It was very early to go to bed, scarcely more than half-past seven, when
Betty blew out the candle and climbed in beside the Little Colonel. She
lay for a long time, listening to the croaking of the frogs, thinking
that Lloyd had forgotten her troubles in dreamland, until a mournful
little voice whispered, "Say, Betty, are you asleep?"
"No; but I thought you were."
"I was, for a few minutes, but that dreadful false face of Molly's woke
me up. I dreamed it was chasing me, and I seemed to be falling and
falling, and somebody screamed at me '_Look out! The witches will catch
you!_' It frightened me so that I woke up all a tremble. I know I am
safe, here in bed with you, but I'm shaking so hard that I can't go to
sleep again. Oh, Betty, you don't know how much I want my mothah! I'll
nevah leave her again as long as I live. My head aches, and I'm so stiff
and soah I can't tu'n ovah!"
"Do you want me to tell you a story?" asked Betty, hearing the sob in
Lloyd's voice, and divining that her pillow had caught more than one
tear under cover of the darkness.
"Oh, yes!" begged the Little Colonel. "Talk to me, even if you don't say
anything but the multiplication table. It will keep me from hearin'
those dreadful frogs, and seein' that face in the dark. I'm ashamed to
be frightened at nothing. I don't know what makes me such a coward."
"Maybe the fall was a sort of shock to your nerves," said Betty,
comfortingly, reaching out to pat the trembling shoulders with a
motherly air. "There, go to sleep, and I'll stay awake and keep away the
hobgoblins. I'll recite the Lady Jane, because it jingles so
beautifully. It goes like a cradle."
A little groping hand reached through the darkness and touched Betty's
face, then buried itself in her soft curls, as if the touch brought a
soothing sense of safety. In a slow, sing-song tone, as monotonous as
the droning of a bee, Betty began, accenting every other syllable with a
sleepy drawl.
"The _la_-dy _Jane_ was _tall_ and _slim_,
The _la_-dy _Jane_ was _fair_.
Sir _Thomas_ her _lord_ was _stout_ of _limb_,
His _cough_ was _short_ and his _eyes_ were _dim_,
And he _wore_ green _specs_ with a _tortoise_ shell _rim_,
And his _hat_ was re-_mark_-ably _broad_ in the _brim_,
And _she_ was un-_common_-ly _fond_ of _him_,
And _they_ were a _lov_-ing _pair_.
And the _name_ and the _fame_ of this _knight_ and his _dame_
Were _every_-where _hailed_ with the _loud_-est ac-_claim_."
But it took more than the Lady Jane to put the restless little listener
to sleep that night. Maud Muller was recited in the same sing-song
measure, and Lord Ullin's daughter followed without a pause, till Betty
herself grew sleepy, and, like a tired little mosquito, droned lower and
lower, finally stopping in the middle of a sentence.
* * * * *
They woke in the morning, to hear thunder rumbling in the distance.
Betty, peeping through the curtains, announced that the sky was gray
with clouds, and she thought that it must surely begin to rain soon.
Lloyd, so stiff and sore from the effects of her fall that she could
scarcely move, sat up with a groan.
"Oh, deah!" she exclaimed. "What is there to do heah on rainy days? No
books, no games, no piano! Mothah said that the lesson set fo' me to
learn was patience, but I'd lose my mind, just sitting still in front of
a clock and watching the minutes go by. I don't see how Job stood it."
"Job didn't do that way," said Betty, soberly, as she looked up from
lacing her shoes. "They didn't have any clocks in those days, and
besides, patience isn't just sitting still all day without fidgeting.
It's putting up with whatever happens to you, without making a fuss
about it. The best way to do it is not to think about it any more than
you can help."
"I'd like to know how I'm goin' to keep from thinkin' about my bruises
and cuts," groaned the Little Colonel, limping stiffly across the room
to look again in the little mirror, at her bandaged forehead, her
scratched cheek, and her temple, criss-crossed with strips of
court-plaster. "What _would_ Papa Jack say if he could see me now?"
She repeated Betty's definition of patience to her reflection in the
mirror, making a wry face as she did so. "'Puttin' up with whatevah
happens to you, without makin' a fuss about it.' Well, I'll try, but
it's mighty hard to do when one of the happenings is fallin' through a
trap-doah, and gettin' as stiff and soah as I am."
She thought about the definition more than once during the long morning
that followed; when the hash was too salty at breakfast, and the oatmeal
was scorched; when Betty was busy in the spring-house, and she was left
all alone for awhile with nothing to entertain herself with but the
almanac and a week-old paper. The thunder, that had been only a low
muttering over the distant hills when they awoke, was coming nearer, and
the damp air was heavy with the approaching storm.
"I'll have one little run out-of-doahs befo' it begins to rain," thought
Lloyd, and started up to skip across the porch; but her skipping changed
to a painful walk as her aching muscles reminded her of her fall, and
she limped slowly down the lane toward the gate.
A strong wind suddenly began lashing the cherry-trees that lined the
lane, and sent a gust of dust and leaves into her face. She stopped a
moment to rub her eyes, and as she did so something fluttering on the
hedge-row broke loose from the thorns that held it, and came blowing
toward her. It was something soft and gray, and it fluttered along
uncertainly, like a bit of fleecy thistledown, as the wind bore it to
her feet.
"Oh, it's mothah's gray veil!" she exclaimed. "It was on the back of the
seat when she waved good-bye to me, and they were drivin' so fast it
must have blown away."
She picked up the dainty piece of silk tissue, soft and filmy as a
cloud, and held it against her cheek. Then she hurried into the house
with it, lest some of the boys should see her and notice the tears in
her eyes. But inside the dark closet, where she climbed to lay the veil
on a shelf, the lonely feeling was too strong for her to overcome.
Crouching down in a corner, with her face hidden in the soft
violet-scented veil, she cried quietly for a long time.
Then something came to her mind that had happened when she was only five
years old, before she had gone to Locust to live. It was that first
lonesome evening when she had been left to spend the night at her
grandfather's, and she grew so homesick as twilight fell that she
decided to run away. And while she stood with her hand on the latch of
the great gate, peering through the bars at the darkening world outside,
Fritz (the wisest little terrier that ever peeped through tangled bangs)
found something in the dead leaves at her feet. It was a little gray
glove that her mother had dropped, when she stooped to kiss her
good-bye. Lloyd remembered how she had squeezed it, and cried over it,
and fondled it as if it held the touch of her mother's hand, and then,
baby though she was, she had tucked it into her tiny apron pocket as a
talisman to help her be brave. Then she walked back to the house without
another tear.
"That visit had a beautiful ending," thought Lloyd, tenderly folding the
veil. "Then I had only Fritz for company, but now I have Betty. I'll
just stop wishin' I could run away from the Cuckoo's Nest, and I'll have
all the good times that I can get out of this visit."
She felt better now. The tears seemed to have washed away the ache in
her throat. Bradley was calling her, and only stopping at the wash-stand
a moment to bathe her red eyes, she went out to see what he wanted.
His freckled face was all alight with a beaming smile, as if he were the
bearer of good news. His hands were behind his back, and as he came
toward her he called out, in the pleasantest of voices, "Which will you
take, Lloyd, right or left?"
Forgetting that Betty had cautioned her about his love of teasing, and
remembering the apples he had brought her the day before, she answered,
with a friendly smile, "I choose what's in the right hand."
"Then shut your eyes, and hold fast all I give you."
Squinting her eyelids tightly together, Lloyd held out her unsuspecting
little hand, only to receive a squirming bunch of clammy, wriggling
fishing worms. She gave a loud shriek, and wrung the hand that the worms
had touched, as if it had been stung.
"Oo-ooh! Bradley Appleton! You horrid boy!" she cried. "How could you be
so mean? There's nothing I _hate_ like worms. I could touch a mouse or
even a snake soonah than those bare crawly things! Oh, I'll nevah, nevah
be able to get the feel of them off my hands, even if I should scrub
them a week. I don't mind things with feet, but the feel of the
squirmin' is awful!"
Bradley laughed so loudly over the success of his joke, that Betty came
out smiling to see what was the matter, and was surprised to see Lloyd
marching indignantly into the house, her head held high and her face
very red.
"Well, I didn't do anything but give her a handful of angleworms," said
Bradley, in reply to Betty's demand for an explanation. "Molly heard her
say that she despised worms, and that nothing could make her touch one
or put it on a hook. I was just showing her for her own good that there
is nothing to be afraid of in a harmless little fishing-worm, and she
had to go off and get mad. Girls are such touchy things. They make me
tired."
Long experience had taught Betty that the best thing to do, when Bradley
was in a teasing mood, was to keep out of his way, so she turned without
a word and went in search of Lloyd. As she did so, the rain that they
had been expecting all morning came dashing against the window-panes in
torrents. Suddenly it grew so dark one could scarcely see to read
without lighting a lamp.
"Come up to my room, Lloyd," called Betty, stopping at the parlour
door, with Davy tagging behind her. "It's lighter up there, and I love
to be close up under the roof when the rain patters on it."
"Wait till I finish washing my hands," answered Lloyd, looking up with a
disgusted face. "Ugh! I can't wash away that horrid squirmin' feelin',
even with a nail-brush."
As Davy climbed the stairs after them he caught Lloyd by the dress.
"Say!" he exclaimed in a half whisper, "it was Molly that told Bradley
to put those worms on you. She dared him to, and they're laughing about
it now, down in the kitchen."
It was on the tip of Lloyd's tongue to say, "They're both of them mean,
hateful things, and I'll get even with them if it takes all the rest of
my visit to do it." But before the words could slip out she remembered
the definition, "Putting up with anything that happens to you without
making a fuss about it."
"There couldn't anything nastier happen than fishin'-worms," she said to
herself, "so this must be one of the times I need patience the very
most."
Although the lesson was remembered in time to keep her from getting into
a rage, it did not put her into a good humour. It was a very unhappy
little face that looked out of the gable window, against which the
autumn rain was dashing. Her head ached from all its bumps and bruises,
and her eyes wore as forlorn an expression as if she were some unhappy
Crusoe, cast away on a desert island with no hope of rescue.
Davy perched himself on the trunk and awaited developments. Betty looked
around the room in search of something to brighten the dull day; but the
bare walls offered no suggestion of entertainment. Lloyd's fingers
drumming restlessly on the window-pane, and the patter of the rain on
the roof, were the only sounds in the room.
"I wondah if it's rainin' where Joyce and Eugenia are," said the Little
Colonel, after awhile, breaking the long silence.
"Oh, let's write to them," cried Betty, eagerly. "One can write East and
one can write West, and we'll tell them all that has happened in the
Cuckoo's Nest since we came back to it."
Davy slid off the trunk in silent disapproval when the writing material
was brought out, and the girls began their letters. The scratching of
the pens across the paper and the dismal dripping of the rain was too
monotonous for him, and he felt forced to go below in search of livelier
companionship.