GRACE.
“Don’t cry,” Phronsie was saying; “because if you do, I cannot help
you.”
“She has told everything--just every single thing, Charley,” announced
Bella, tragically turning around to him.
Charley Swan stood like a statue, with no eyes for any one but
Phronsie. She turned a grave face on him. “I’m afraid she’s badly
hurt,” she said. “I think you will have to get Dr. Phillips, Mrs.
Higby.”
“It’s only my foot,” said Grace with a little moan.
“Let me go for him,” begged Charley, coming out of his frozen state.
“One of the men’ll go,” said Mrs. Higby. “La! don’t you stir a mite.”
She went to the door, gave the message, and came back with a sigh of
relief. “You poor child, you,” bending over Grace’s foot. “You must
have turned it clean over itself. There, there, the cold water’ll be
the best we can do for it till the doctor gets here. My!” as her glance
fell again on the dark circles under the blue eyes, and the elaborate
frizzes; then she fell to coughing, and speedily betook herself to the
farther end of the room.
“I’ll hold her,” she said presently, coming back. “Miss Phronsie,
you’re wanted every single minute in the best room. Let me sit there
where you be.”
Bella sprang to her feet, and blushed rose red. “I forgot you’d left
the reception. Oh, do excuse me! And please, Miss Phronsie Pepper,
don’t stay here any longer.”
“I shall stay,” said Phronsie, “till I see that she is better.”
“Where’s Phronsie? Mrs. Higby, do you know where Miss Phronsie is?”
cried old Mr. King, putting his head in the doorway. “Oh, my good
gracious!” as his eye caught the group.
Grace hopped off the lounge, and hobbled along on one foot. “Oh, sir!
it’s my fault,” she panted; then she fell flat on the floor.
When she came to herself, she was lying on a bed whose white hangings
she could dimly see as she opened her eyes. Her foot felt heavy and
queer.
“I’m sure I cannot apologize enough to you, Mrs. King,” said a voice
that she was quite familiar with. “This school-girl prank is quite
unforgivable, I know, but I hope you won’t lay it up against me.”
“We ought not to talk here, Mrs. Atherton,” said Polly gently; then
they went out into the other room.
“I don’t think Bella Drysdale is just the right companion for her,”
said Mrs. Atherton. “I have thought so for some time. Now I shall do my
best to break up the intimacy.”
“Ugh--O Aunt Fay!” shrieked Grace, trying to raise herself in bed. But
she only succeeded in falling back heavily with a groan.
“Dear me, that girl has quite upset me,” cried Mrs. Atherton, trembling
nervously.
“Do you stay out here, Mrs. Atherton,” said Polly brightly, with a
gentle hand putting her on the sofa; then she went into the room where
Grace lay, closed the door, and stepped softly up to the bed.
“Now, little girl,” she said, just as if Grace were six years old
instead of sixteen, “you must stop crying, and do not move. If you do,
your foot may be injured for life.”
“I can’t help crying,” said poor Grace, covering her face with both
hands.
“You can help doing anything that is wrong,” said Polly gently. Then
she brought a brush and comb, unpinned the frizzes, and laid them on
the white toilet-table, and began to brush the soft, straight, shining
hair.
“It wasn’t Bella at all,” sobbed Grace. “She didn’t want to do it, but
I made her. Oh! I can’t give Bella up, Mrs. King.”
“You shall tell your Aunt all about it when you are better,” said
Polly. “Now we must not talk about it. You are going to stay with me
until your foot is well enough for you to be moved.”
“What, here in this house with you?” cried Grace, almost speechless
with astonishment.
“Yes,” said Polly; “you see, you’ve given your poor foot a terrible
wrench, and Dr. Phillips isn’t willing that you should be moved just
yet. And he can come and see you so much easier here, Grace.”
[Illustration: “I shall get my Mamsie,” cried a small, determined
voice.]
“O Mrs. King!” Grace rolled her head on the pillow to look at her, “you
don’t know how wicked I’ve been. You can’t know, or you never’d keep me
here in all this world. Why, I disobeyed my aunt to come here.”
“Yes, I do know,” said Polly gravely. “I know it all. But I said we
wouldn’t talk about it now.” Then Polly sat down on the edge of the bed
in her beautiful reception-gown, and Grace felt too wicked to touch
it with one finger, although she longed to; and Mrs. King held her
hand, and told her stories about her own girlhood,--how the Peppers
lived in the little brown house just around the lane, “where you will
go when you are able to walk, dear;” and how Joel was the pastor of a
big church in New York, and where Ben and Davie were; and how the dear
mother had gone abroad with Father Fisher because he was tired and
needed rest, and wanted to visit the hospitals again, and some foreign
doctors; and then she told about Johnny, and the railroad accident that
took his mother away to heaven, and how good Mrs. Fargo had adopted
him for her very own boy, and they were there at Badgertown for the
whole summer. And how Mr. Higby, in whose farmhouse the people were
all carried who were hurt, had sold his farm, and was now their head
gardener, and good Mrs. Higby was the housekeeper.
“Yes, I think she is quite good,” said Grace, snuggling up to the kind
hand; “she didn’t scold me a bit, but she looked so sorry for me, Mrs.
King.”
“And Johnny’s just the dearest dear,” said Polly, who always believed
him but little short of a cherub; and then she told how he was thrown
from the donkey just the week before, but “it didn’t hurt him a bit,
and”--
“If you please, Mrs. King, the children are ready to go to bed,” said
Katrina, putting her white cap in the door.
“And now I must go to my chicks,” said Polly, getting off the bed. Then
she bent over, and set a kiss on the pale cheek. “Don’t you worry about
anything,” she said. “I shall ask my sister Phronsie to stay with you.”
“Mrs. King,” cried Grace, nervously clutching the brocade dress, “there
is one thing,--if you could keep Aunt Fay from writing this to my
mother. Oh, please do, dear Mrs. King!”
“She won’t do it,” said Mrs. King quietly; “don’t be afraid, Grace.”
Grace gave her one look, and relaxed her hold.
“I shall get my Mamsie,” cried a small, determined voice; and Elyot
rushed in in his nightgown, followed by Barby in hers, hugging a
dilapidated black doll. “Mamsie,” cried Barby, stumbling over to her
arms.
“Don’t you go in there,” commanded King, coming last, in his nightgown.
“Sister Polly, I couldn’t help it, I came to keep them out.”
“Oh, dear me,” cried Katrina, who had gone back after delivering her
message, now hurrying in. “Children, how can you!”
“Bad, naughty Katty,” said Barby, shaking her curls at her, “to keep me
away from my mummy. Go ’way, Katty.”
“O Barby!” said Polly gently, and nestling her little girl up to her.
“Oh, what a cunning little thing!” cried Grace in a rapture. “Oh, do
let her stay, Mrs. King!” as Polly made signs for Katrina to take her.
“What you in my bed for?” cried King sturdily; “say, and who are you?”
“O King!” said Polly; “why, that isn’t like my boy.”
“Oh, have I taken his bed?” asked Grace in dismay, and making another
effort to rise.
[Illustration: Elyot perched at the foot, where he surveyed Grace at
his leisure.]
“He calls it his because once when he was sick he left the nursery and
came in here to sleep,” said Polly. “Now come, children, say good-night
to Miss Grace, and then we must fly to bed.” Elyot had one of her
hands now; and he clambered up on the bed, where he perched on the
foot, and surveyed Grace at his leisure.
“Is that her name because she says grace at the table?” he asked after
a pause.
“No, dear, that was her baby name; isn’t it a pretty one?”
“Was she ever a baby?” asked Barby, looking with intense interest at
Grace’s long figure under the bedclothes.
“Yes, indeed; she was once a little baby just like all you children.”
“O mamma! not a _little_ one,” said Elyot incredulously.
“Not a wee, wee, teenty one,” said Barby, shaking her head.
“I guess she was as long as that,” said King, measuring off a piece on
Grace’s frame, that he supposed a suitable length, “just about as long
as that.”
“Take care, dear. You may touch her lame foot,” said Polly.
And then the children, who had been in the little brown house when the
accident occurred, clamored to know all about it. But Polly was firm;
and telling them they should hear how it happened on the morrow, she
held Barby down for a good-night kiss, a proceeding all the others
imitated, till the three swarmed around Grace’s pillow.
“Good-night,” said Barby, with a sleepy little hum; “do you say
‘Now-I-lay-me-down-to-seep’”?
“No,” said Grace. How long ago it seemed since she had felt too old to
repeat that prayer!
“Mamsie, she doesn’t say ‘Now-I-lay-me-down-to-seep,’” said Barby,
trying to open wide her eyes.
“Come, dears.”
“What _do_ you say?” cried Elyot, pulling the bedspread, “say?”
“Elyot!” said his mother. He took one look at her face, and then
scuttled off, picking up the nightgown to facilitate progress.
So Polly went off, her baby on her arm. Barby, whose eyes drooped at
every step, dropped the black doll out of her sleepy hand; Katrina
picked it up, and helped the boys along.
Just then Phronsie came in with a pleased expression on her face to see
how cheery everything was.
“Your aunt has gone,” she said; “but she is coming out to-morrow to see
how you are.”
[Illustration: So Polly went off, her baby on her arm.]
Grace achieved a sitting posture, impossible as it had seemed before.
“Oh, _dear_ Mrs. King!” she screamed, “now I know she will write to
mamma this evening.”
Polly set Barby in her little crib, then sped back. “No, Grace,” she
said, “she won’t write; you can trust me, dear.”
“She always writes evenings when she’s anything on her mind,” said
Grace; “and she’d hurry about this.” But upon Mrs. King’s assuring her
that she would take the care of this upon herself, Grace cuddled down
again, and let Phronsie comfort her.
And by and by, while Polly’s messenger was speeding to the city with
just such a letter as she knew how to write, addressed to Mrs. Carroll
Atherton, Mrs. Higby herself came up with Grace’s supper; and when she
saw how cheery things were, and how everything was beginning to mend,
she put her arms akimbo, and said, “My land! but you’ll be as spry as a
cricket in a week.”
“I brought you some flowers,” said Phronsie, laying down a little bunch
where Grace’s fingers could reach them.
Grace looked at them, but did not offer to touch them.
“What is it?” asked Phronsie.
“Might I just have one little sprig of those you held in your hand when
you came after I was hurt, Miss Phronsie?”
“Why, yes, you may. Mrs. Higby, will you get them? You may have the
whole bunch,” she said to Grace.
“Oh, only just one sprig, please,” said Grace eagerly.
But the whole bunch of lilies-of-the-valley was brought; and Grace held
them in her hands, and buried her face in them, and then she opened her
mouth obediently, while Mrs. Higby, after tucking a napkin under her
chin, fed her from a generous plate of milk-toast, and everything was
getting quite jolly.
“She looks better already, don’t she, Miss Phronsie!” exclaimed Mrs.
Higby in admiration of the effect of the treatment. “My! but ain’t this
nice milk-toast, though! I guess I know, for I made it myself. There,
take this, poor dear.”
“I’m sorry to make you all so much trouble,” said Grace penitently,
with her mouth half full.
“Don’t feed her too fast, please, Mrs. Higby,” said Phronsie, looking
on with the deepest interest.
“My land! she ought to eat to keep her strength up,” said Mrs. Higby,
plying the spoon industriously. “Just so much milk-toast such as this
is, and every hour you’ll see that leg of hers getting well like
lightning.”
And then old Mr. King had to come and stand in the doorway, and say
how glad he was that the foot was hurt no worse, for it had given him
a dreadful fright to see her fear of his displeasure. And when Grace
saw his handsome face light up with a smile for her, her last fear left
her; and she gave a sigh of relief as he went off, obediently finished
the toast, and settled back on her pillow.
“Land, how weak she must be to eat like that! she feels the need of
victuals,” said Mrs. Higby. “Now I’ll run down and make you another
slice,” nodding to Grace, “you poor dear, you.”
“Oh, don’t let her!” begged Grace in alarm. “O Miss Phronsie! I
couldn’t eat another morsel.”
“She doesn’t want any more, Mrs. Higby,” said Phronsie; “truly she
doesn’t.”
“But just s’posin’ she should be weak and faint in the night,” said
Mrs. Higby. “I’d better make just one little thin slice, hadn’t I, Miss
Phronsie,” standing irresolute in the doorway.
“No,” said Phronsie firmly. “I don’t think you had, Mrs. Higby. There,
I’m going to tuck her up now, and then I shall stay with her.”
“Will you, Miss Phronsie?” cried Grace in delight.
“Yes,” said Phronsie, “I shall stay just as long as you want me to.”