A WRESTLING MATCH.
"That's it! Prime! Now, again!" shouted Will, encouragingly, and
Cricket, in her blue gymnasium suit, panting and laughing, put her
shoulder to Archie's again, and stood in position. Will was giving her a
lesson in wrestling, at her particular request, and she was proving an
apt pupil, for the slender, elastic little figure and supple muscles
made up for any lack of strength.
"Good, good!" repeated Will, as Cricket, swaying and tugging, and
bending backward almost double, came up like a steel wire. "Bravo! we'll
soon have you champion lady wrestler in a dime museum. At him again!
good enough! hurray!" for Cricket, slipping through Archie's grasp like
a knotless thread, took him suddenly unawares, and fairly and squarely
tripped him up.
"By jove!" ejaculated Archie, still on his back, too much surprised to
get up.
"Well done, Miss Scricket!" applauded Will. "Bet you can't do it again."
"Come over here, and I'll try _you_," offered Cricket, and Will,
laughingly, put his arm around her waist. But his superior size and
strength soon told, and Cricket found herself down on her back.
"But you do well, youngster," said Will, patronizingly. "Try that twist
once more that you tripped Archie up on. That's a good one! Now, again!
That would fetch anybody if they weren't expecting it."
"I'm tired now," said Cricket, throwing herself on the grass, for they
were in the orchard. "Let's rest awhile." She clasped her hands above
her head, and lay back on the grass. Archie drew himself up on to one of
the low gnarled trees and balanced himself in a very precarious way
directly over her head.
"If you fall off that limb, you will come straight down and break my
nose," warned Cricket.
"There isn't enough of it to break, miss," said Archie, balancing
himself with care, as he tried to see if he could kneel upon a
horizontal branch without holding on.
"You'll have to be of a very _equilibrious_ nature to do that," said
Cricket, rolling hastily out of her dangerous position, just in time,
for Archie overbalanced himself, and came down with a crash.
"Now, see what you've done," said Archie, sitting up and feeling of his
back. "You spoke at the wrong time. I might have broken my neck."
Cricket meditated a moment, then addressed the sky, thoughtfully.
"Isn't it funny that when anything happens to a boy all by his own
fault, he always says to somebody, 'See what you've made me do.' Anybody
would think _I'd_ made Archie fall there."
"Well, didn't you?"
"When Donald can't find anything that he's gone and lost himself," went
on Cricket, still addressing the sky, "he always says he wishes the
girls would let his things alone. Boys are the _funniest_."
"If they're any funnier than girls, I'll eat my boots," said Archie,
firing green apples at a mark. "Girls are so finicky. There's Edna,
squeals if you touch her. If I give her hair just one little yank, you
would think I'd pulled her scalp off. If I give Will a good
punch"--illustrating with a resounding whack--"he doesn't squeal."
"No, but he hits back," said Cricket, laughing, as Will levelled Archie,
by a vigorous thump. "If Edna should hit you a few times like that, you
wouldn't tease her so."
"And she's always so careful of her clothes," went on Archie, ignoring
this point; "can't do this, because she'll spoil her apron, can't do
that, because she'll muss her hair."
"Boys ar'n't talked to about their clothes as girls are," said Cricket,
with a sigh. "If you just heard 'Liza talk when we tear our clothes! She
has to mend them. Wouldn't I be happy if I could go around all the time
in my gymnasium suit. I feel _so_ light and airy."
"And girls are so affected," pursued Archie. "You wouldn't walk with us
yesterday coming home from church, and why not? 'Cause you had your best
bonnet on, and you carried your head too high. _So_ affected!"
"It wasn't affectedness, it was got-to-do-it-ness," said Cricket,
stoutly. "If you had to go to church with a great, big, flappy, floppy
hat on, that joggled your ears all the time, 'cause the roses were so
heavy, and if you had to be careful to keep your pink organdie clean
for next Sunday, and if you had a teasy cousin, who, likely as not,
would take hold of your arm, and crunch your sleeves all down, most
probably you'd have walked all by yourself, too, and tried to keep
yourself respectable so 'Liza wouldn't scold. But you're a boy,"
finished Cricket, with a burst of envy, "and so you don't bother about
clothes. And, anyway, boys will never admit they're to blame about
anything," returning suddenly to the original charge.
"Because they never are, of course," answered Archie, turning a back
somersault. "It's always somebody else's fault."
"Did you hear auntie tell that funny story about Archie, last night,
Will?" asked Cricket.
"Funny story about me, miss? There never was any funny story about me."
"This was a little bit funny, anyway. Auntie said you weren't but three
years old, and she was visiting with you, at Kayuna. It was early one
morning, before breakfast, and the piazza had just been washed up, and
wasn't dry yet. Papa was reading a newspaper, and you were running up
and down the piazza, showing off."
"Showing off!" repeated Archie, with a sniff of disdain.
"Yes, sir, showing off. Auntie said so. She said you always liked to,
even then. Stop firing apples at me. You nearly hit me that time. You
stood still just in front of papa, and gave a little kick at him, and
your foot slipped, and down you went on your back. And you got up, as
angry as could be, and you said, 'Now see what you made me do,' and you
gave another kick at him, and down you went again. Then auntie said you
screamed out, 'Now you've done it again. You've done it again.' And she
says that ever since, you always say that, no matter what happens to
you."
"There comes grandma," said Archie, changing the subject, immediately,
since he knew by long experience that Cricket was apt to get the best of
him, in such conversations.
"She's been to see that sick woman," said Cricket, jumping up and
running to meet her. She had the most unbounded admiration for her
stately, handsome grandmother, who by some strange attraction of
opposites, had an especially soft place in her heart for her hoydenish
little namesake.
Grandmother Maxwell was by no means an old lady yet, in spite of her
flock of grandchildren, for she was only just sixty, and was as erect
and vigorous, in spite of her snow-white hair, as a girl. Beauty-loving
little Cricket thought her dead perfection, and adored her.
"What a hot little face," said grandmother, lightly touching Cricket's
cheek. Cricket put her arm about her grandmother's waist, which she was
just tall enough to do, and walked along beside her.
"The boys have been teaching me to wrestle," she explained. "I'm
learning fast, grandma. It's just as easy. Get up, Archie, and let me
show grandma how I can throw you."
"Throw me! well, I like that. I happened to stumble on a stone, grandma,
and Cricket thinks she threw me. She couldn't do it again to save her
life."
"Come and try, then," said Cricket, invitingly. But Archie declined, on
the plea of its being too hot.
"Isn't he lazy, grandma?" said Cricket, disdainfully. "But I can show
you, grandma, how we do it. Put your arm around me this way, and take
hold of my hand. Now then, see. I try to get my foot around your ankle,
quickly, and give a little jerk, and pull this way--"
And to the unbounded astonishment of all three, stately grandma suddenly
and unexpectedly measured her length on the grass, with Cricket on top
of her. Cricket's illustration had been altogether too graphic.
"Jean!" gasped grandma, as she went over. Cricket rolled over and sprang
to her feet in a flash.
"Oh, grandma! please excuse me! I'm so sorry! I didn't mean to. I never
thought I could do it so quickly, for you're so large. I only meant to
show you."
Will and Archie were bending over grandma, to help her rise. Her foot
was twisted under her.
"Wait, boys," she said. "I'm lying on my foot."
It is not easy for a large person who is lying on her back, with her
foot doubled up under her, to find her centre of gravity. It was several
minutes before she could be helped to a sitting position. She was very
pale, although she laughed.
"Children, I'm really afraid,--Jean, you absurd child! how did you
throw me over so quickly? I really _am_ afraid that my ankle is
sprained. I don't think I can step on it. See if you can help me to
stand, boys, and I'll try it."
"Oh, grandma!" groaned Cricket, in horror. "Have I sprained your ankle?"
"It probably isn't bad, dear," said grandma, quickly. "At any rate, you
didn't mean to--Hush, Archie!" as that young man gave Cricket a
reproachful--
"Now you _have_ done it!"
Will and Archie, being stout, well-grown boys, easily raised grandma to
her feet, or, to her foot, rather, for she immediately found she could
not bear her weight on her left ankle, and she sat down rather suddenly
again.
"Dear me! this is a dignified position for a grandmother," she said.
"Never mind, dear. It was only an accident. Take off my shoe, please,
for my foot is swelling, I think. Archie, go for Luke, and tell him to
bring a piazza-chair, and I think you can manage to carry me in on that,
can't you? Then tell Auntie Jean that I'm here, and have sprained my
ankle, and tell her to have some arnica and bandages ready when I get
there. Why, _don't_ cry, darling," as two big tears welled up in
Cricket's gray eyes, and splashed over her cheeks, where her dimples
were entirely out of sight, at the dreadful thought that she had
sprained grandma's ankle.
In a few moments Auntie Jean came flying across the orchard, bandages
and arnica in hand, while the waitress came after with a water-pitcher.
"_Mother!_" said Mrs. Somers, in greatest surprise. "How did you manage
to fall and sprain your ankle on this perfectly level ground?"
"It's rather humiliating to confess that I was wrestling with my
granddaughter, and that she got the best of me," returned grandma,
patting Cricket's hand. "It's my first and last pugilistic performance."
"It's my fault," burst out Cricket, "and I ought to be put in jail. Will
had been showing me how to wrestle, and he had taught me such a good
twist, that I caught Archie on, and I thought I'd just show
grandma--just barely show her, auntie, and I put my foot around her
ankle, and somehow, she went right over like ninepins, and doubled up
her foot. Oh, grandma! can you ever walk again?"
Grandma's lips were getting rather white with pain from her foot, but
she laughed again, and said, brightly:
"Yes, indeed, little maid, I will be all right in a week or two."
"A week!" groaned Cricket. "I thought you were going to say to-morrow."
Auntie Jean had slipped off grandma's stocking, and was bathing her
rapidly swelling foot with arnica. In a few minutes, Will, and Archie,
and Luke appeared, bringing a piazza-chair, and two stout poles. Auntie
Jean bandaged the foot temporarily, and then Luke and Will helped
grandma up in the chair. They slipped the poles lengthwise under the
chair, and Luke stood ready to lift the front ends as Will and Archie
took the rear ones.
"Wait a moment," said Aunt Jean, as the procession was ready to start.
"Can't I fix a support for your foot, mother? It will hurt it dreadfully
to hang it down."
"Put a stick across the poles, and the cushion on it," suggested
Cricket, quickly, "and lay her foot on that." She picked up a stout
stick, and laid it in place, while Archie put the cushion on it, and
adjusted grandma's foot on it.
"That's a capital suggestion," said grandma, approvingly. "That feels
very comfortable. Are you sure you can lift me, boys?"
"Could carry a ton this way, Mrs. Maxwell," said Luke. "All ready, boys.
Hist all together, now." And as they all "histed" the procession moved.
Auntie Jean and Cricket walked on either side, keeping the cushion and
stick in place. So grandma finally arrived, was helped up the piazza
steps, and into her own room, which was, fortunately, on the first
floor.