A PLAN THAT FAILED
When the doctor was gone, after saying that Gay would be all right in a
day or two, Miss Celia took her place at the bedside of the sufferer,
prepared to play the nurse; Miss Linn and Margery returned to their
household duties; John resumed his wood-chopping and Peace spread her
downy wing once more over Rose Cottage.
During the rest of the day Gay spoke so gently, looked so pensive and
behaved so like an angel that Miss Linn wondered how she could have
dreamed of calling her mock niece a hoyden.
"She is perfectly angelic," Miss Linn confided to her sister. "I don't
know how I ever thought her otherwise."
"The dear lamb," said Margery, after seeing Gay among the pillows
successfully playing the rôle of angel, "she's no more like the tomboy
as was flying around the back-yard this forenoon than nothing in the
world. It looks," added Margery, who had had what she called "an
expe'runce" and was qualified to judge, "it looks like a real change of
heart."
Miss Celia said nothing at first, but as day waned into night and Gay
did not relapse into his former graceless conduct she added her meed of
praise.
The next morning Gay was better—and Gay on a couch of pain and Gay
in health were two different persons. Long before anybody else was
astir he was standing and stepping—gingerly at first, then boldly—on
the injured foot "to see if it would hurt!" As it did not he began to
dress, selecting, with the recklessness of a boy, the first frock that
came to hand; one of May's best ones, a pretty brown China silk, with
smocked yoke, puffed-sleeves and a quaint little chatelaine pocket. It
was not an easy frock to get into, and Gay tugged and toiled, thinking
regretfully of knickerbockers and cambric blouse-waist.
"Goodness," he panted, "I wonder who would be a girl if it could be
helped."
The chatelaine pocket belonged on the side, but in Gay's hands it swung
in front.
"It will be handy for pears and things," said Gay to himself.
The hooks and eyes on the bodice showed the utmost aversion for one
another, refusing to meet until forced to, but at length they were as
securely joined as man and wife, and Gay popped his head out of the
window to cool his brow. Making a girl's toilet was serious and heating
work.
"Good morning, little invalid!" cried a pleasant voice. It was Miss
Celia standing in the trim garden below.
Then Gay, obeying one of those extraordinary impulses that govern
boys when there is a chance to court disaster, climbed through the
window, swung off, caught a sturdy trumpet vine and slid to the ground,
scattering leaves and flowers before him as he went. Rose Cottage was
a low, irregular building and the distance from the window to the
ground was not great, but such a descent was not without danger, and
it certainly was one which the average wearer of petticoats would not
have essayed. Poor, frightened Miss Celia permitted Gay to upset her
ideas of maidenly propriety without a word of censure; she had scarcely
strength to say,—
"May, how could you do that?"
"I had to, auntie; I felt so full! After I have stayed in the house a
whole day I have to do something to let off steam. Don't you?"
Miss Celia disclaimed all acquaintance with this mental condition, but
she didn't scold a bit, and Gay, realizing that he was not playing his
part with great skill, appreciated her forbearance.
"What did they know about girls?" Miss Celia silently argued. "Two
old maids whose youth was passed? The ways of modern childhood were a
sealed book to them."
Not so lenient were Miss Linn's judgments. She, also, had seen
Gay's descent, and having recovered from her fright she began to be
indignant; to think that it was time something; was done to curb such
high animal spirits. It might be her guest's taste to leave the house
by a second story window; it was not hers!
So after breakfast she demanded Gay's presence in the morning room.
"Did you bring any work with you?" she asked.
"What kind of work do you mean?" said Gay, looking puzzled.
"Sewing."
"Sewing! I can't sew."
"Can't sew!" cried Miss Linn, in horror. "Have you never learned?"
"Not I," said Gay, thinking this would end the matter.
This was a mistake. Miss Linn immediately produced, from the depths of
a work-basket, a number of small squares of bright-colored calico and
white cotton cloth, and spread them on a table.
"Is that a game?" asked Gay, curiously.
"It is patchwork," Miss Linn replied, amazed at such ignorance.
"What is it for?" questioned Gay, who had no acquaintance with those
monuments to feminine industry, known as quilts and "comforters."
"For you to make a pretty little quilt for your bed," said Miss Linn,
in a persuasive tone. "Wouldn't you like to have it?"
"No, I thank you. A blanket is good enough for me!" said naughty Gay.
"But this would be your own work!" said Miss Linn, trying to arouse the
housewifely instinct in the fraud's breast. "See, it would look so."
And Miss Linn arranged the squares of calico in the right relations
with the squares of cloth.
"Yes—like a checker-board," said Gay, not very enthusiastically.
"Don't you think it is very nice?" said Miss Linn.
"It wouldn't be half bad for camping; and it might do for a sail if a
fellow was hard up, though I guess the wind would rip it to smithereens
in a little while."
Miss Linn was in despair. Was there ever such a girl? Or one who used
such peculiar expressions? The poor lady was not quite certain that she
was listening to slang, but she had a suspicion that she was. "Rip" and
"Smithereens" sounded like it.
"The doctor's wife is on the porch, mem," announced Margery at the door.
"Say that I will be right out," said Miss Linn.
"Good," thought Gay. "I shall get out of this mess!"
[Illustration: GAY DROVE THE NEEDLE INTO HIS THUMB]
But his exultation was premature!
"May," said Miss Linn, "here are squares already sewed. I want you to
put the other pieces together in the same way. Yes, you can do it," she
added, for she saw signs of rebellion in Gay's face. "Here are needles,
thread and a thimble that Aunt Celia used when she was a little girl.
You must do it somehow," and Miss Linn left the room.
"Sew!" muttered Gay, distracted at this fresh calamity. "I won't do it;
I'll tell her that I'm a boy and be sent home!" And disturb the mother
whose recovery to health depended upon freedom from agitation? No; that
would not do. There was nothing to do but submit to this indignity, and
Gay picked up a square, pondered a moment as if trying to recall some
knowledge of the art of sewing, grasped the threaded needle and drove
it through the cloth into his thumb!
"Christopher Columbus!" cried Gay. "I'd rather take a flogging than try
to manage this old needle!"
Then he began again; by pushing the needle half way through one side
of the square, then turning the square over and pulling the needle
and thread through on that side, several uneven stitches were taken,
but a knot put an end to this. Gay pulled and jerked the thread until
it broke, then a new dilemma presented itself; the end of the thread
slipped through the cloth in spite of his efforts to keep it where it
belonged.
Suddenly a bright idea struck him. "I hope there's some here," he
said, to himself. There was "some" in a crystal jar, on Miss Celia's
davenport, and Gay went manfully to work to join the squares together
with mucilage. This was his bright idea! In order to facilitate matters
he used his lap for a table.
In a little while he dashed out on the porch where his aunts were
entertaining their caller. "Here it is, all done!" he cried.
Miss Linn's astonished gaze traveled from the silk frock where the
mucilage was trickling down the front breadths in little streams, to
the patchwork with the wet rim round each square. "I told you to sew
it," she said, reproachfully.
"Excuse me," said Gay, with exasperating politeness, "you said get it
together somehow—and isn't gluing it, 'somehow'?"
"May," said Miss Linn, flushing with mortification, "go to your room
and stay until I come."
Gay turned away, muttering something not intended for anybody's ears,
but Miss Linn heard it.
"What did you say?" she asked.
"I said that if I had known that visiting was like going to a reform
school I wouldn't have come," replied Gay, the incorrigible.