A CRAZY CHRISTMAS.
"You dear little thing," said Aunt Charlotte, coming into the room with
Ken in her arms, but putting him down and taking up her naughty niece.
"You've been getting homesick all by yourself this long afternoon. Where
did you stay?"
"Stayed up-sta--irs," sobbed Flaxie.
"In the cold? Why, darling, what made you?"
"You all went off and left me," replied Flaxie, with a little tempest of
tears.
Then auntie understood it all,--how this child, who was old enough to
know better, had been rolling a little bit of a trouble over and over,
till it had grown into a mountain and almost crushed her. And the
mother-heart in Aunt Charlotte's bosom ached for poor foolish Flaxie.
"She has added to her cold, and is feverish," thought the good lady,
sending for Nancy to bring some hot water in the tin bath-tub that was
used for washing the children.
"I shall have you sleep with me to-night, in the down-stairs room," said
Aunt Charlotte; "and I'll put a flannel round your neck, dear, and some
poultices on your feet."
Flaxie smiled faintly as she saw the dried burdock-leaves soaking in
vinegar, for she liked to have a suitable parade made over her when she
was sick. Besides, she had often thought she should enjoy sleeping in
the "down-stairs room," and was glad now that Uncle Ben happened to be
gone; that is, as glad as she could be of anything. It was a miserable,
forlorn world all of a sudden to Flaxie, and she had never known such "a
mean old night," even if it was "the night before Christmas."
The lamp burning dimly in the corner of the room, on the floor, cast
shadows that frightened her; her head ached; she woke the baby in the
crib by crying, and then he woke everybody else.
It was a "mean old night" to the whole house; and when I say the _whole_
house, I mean both halves of it. About midnight, as Mrs. Hunter was
sleeping sweetly, her door-bell rang a furious peal. Nobody likes to hear
such a sound at dead of night, and Mrs. Hunter trembled a little, for
she was all alone with her children; but she rose and dressed as fast as
possible, and went down-stairs with a lamp.
"Who is it?" she asked, through the keyhole.
"It's ME!" said a childish voice that she thought sounded like one of
the Allen children.
She ventured to open the door, and there on the steps in the darkness
stood Flaxie Frizzle, bareheaded, shivering, and looking terribly
frightened.
"Oh, Mrs. Hunter, something _orful_ has happened at our house. Oh, come
quick, Mrs. Hunter!"
"Yes, yes, dear, I'll go this minute; but what is it?" said the lady,
hurrying to the entry closet for her shawl.
"Auntie is crazy! She is running round and round with the tea-kettle."
Mrs. Hunter stood still with amazement.
"Who sent _you_ here?" said she. "Why don't they call the doctor?"
"I don't know. She's going to scald me to death, and I s'pose you know
I'm sick," whined Flaxie, sinking down on the doormat, where the light
of the lamp shone full upon her, and Mrs. Hunter saw--what she might
have seen before, if she had not been so nervous--that the little girl
wore a checked flannel nightie, and her feet were done up in poultices.
Of course she must have come away without any one's knowing it, that
cold night, with the snow falling too! It was she that was crazy,
instead of Aunt Charlotte.
"How could the child have got out of the house?" thought Mrs. Hunter.
But the question was now, how to get her back again?
"Come, Flaxie," said she, in a soothing tone, "let me wrap you up in a
shawl and take you home pickaback,--there's a good girl!"
"But I don't want auntie to scald me."
"She shan't, dear. If she has got the tea-kettle, I'll take it away from
her."
"Honest?" asked Flaxie, piteously.
But she forgot her terror as soon as she was mounted pickaback, and
thought herself the "country cousin" taking a ride on a holder.
All this while everybody in the Allen half of the house was up and
hunting for the lost child. Milly was crying bitterly; Johnny had come
in from the barn, where he had pulled the hay all over; and Uncle Ben,
who had just returned from his journey, was starting out on the street
with a lantern.
Just then Mrs. Hunter walked in, and dropped Flaxie into Aunt
Charlotte's arms, saying:
"Here, I've brought you a poor sick child."
Then there was such a commotion that Flaxie was more bewildered than
ever, and at sight of Uncle Ben she screamed wildly. It was his coming
home about ten minutes before that had frightened her, in the first
place, by waking her from a bad dream; and she had slipped out of bed,
and out of the open front door, before any one missed her.
"There! there! darling, don't cry," said Aunt Charlotte, hushing her in
her arms, while Mrs. Hunter heated a blanket.
"I've done something _orful_," said Flaxie in her auntie's ear. "I'm so
sorry; but I stole a horse and sleigh! _Don't_ tell, auntie! I put 'em
behind that door."
"Well, never mind it, dear; you didn't mean to," said Aunt Charlotte,
smiling in spite of her heavy heart. Then she turned to Uncle Ben, who
stood by, looking puzzled, and asked him in a whisper if he "didn't
think he ought to go for the doctor"?
"Oh, by all means," said Mrs. Hunter, beginning to help him on with his
overcoat.
He had hurried home in the night train, on purpose to spend Christmas
day with his family, and was really too tired to take a ride of two
miles in a snow-storm. But he was not thinking of that; he was thinking
how dreadful it was to have his dear little niece sick away from home;
and how her papa didn't like the Hilltop doctor,--and perhaps it was
best to go three miles farther to the next town after Dr. Pulsifer.
"Yes, go for Dr. Pulsifer," said Aunt Charlotte, when he asked her about
it; "and be as quick as you can."
Flaxie knew nothing of all this. Her cheeks burned, her eyes shone, and
she kept saying there were a million lions and tigers in the bed; and
where was the rat-trap?
"Do bring the rat-trap!" said she, plunging about in a fright. "Oh, you
don't hear, do you? There's a woman out in the other room eating
peas,--eating, and eating, and eating. Why don't you stop her? Oh, you
don't hear! Johnny Allen, run for a sponge and vinegar, and put it in
auntie's ears, so she can hear!"
Milly laughed at these strange speeches till she heard Nancy say to Mrs.
Hunter, "Crazy as a loon, ain't she? I'm afraid it's water on the
brain."
Then Milly, who did not understand Nancy's meaning, but was appalled by
the tone, ran into the pantry, and cried behind the flour-barrel.
"If Flaxie Frizzle dies, I want to die too! She's the only twin cousin
I've got in the world."
In a short time, considering how far he had ridden, Uncle Ben came home,
but without Dr. Pulsifer, who had gone away, and could not be there
before to-morrow noon.
"I'm so disappointed," said Aunt Charlotte, looking pale and ill enough
herself to be in bed. "But the poor little thing is asleep now, and
perhaps she isn't so very sick after all. Do tell me if you think
there's any danger of brain-fever?"
"Well, I think this," replied Uncle Ben, leaning over the bed and taking
a long look at the little patient; "_I_ don't know what ails her! It may
be diphtheria, and then again it may be common sore throat; but if she
isn't better in the morning, we'll telegraph to her father, for a child
that can turn yellow and pea-green, as she did last spring, is capable
of almost anything."
"That is true," said Aunt Charlotte; "one never knows what she is going
to do next." And then she looked at Flaxie, and sighed. It was
wonderful what a power she had of keeping her friends in a worry, this
little pink and white slip of a girl! Once she had fallen into a brook,
and once into a well, beside falling sick times without number. Uncle
Ben and Aunt Charlotte knew all this, but they did not happen to know
that it was a very common thing for Flaxie to be crazy! It was just so
with her brother Preston and her sister Ninny; they seldom had any
little ailment like a bad cold without "going out of their heads," and
nobody in the family minded it at all.
If Flaxie's mother had been at Hilltop, she would have sent Uncle Ben
and Aunt Charlotte to bed; but as she was not there, and they didn't
know any better, they sat up all night watching their queer little
niece.
Rather a sorry "Christmas eve" all around the house,--but a beautiful
Christmas morning, and not a cloud in the sky. Flaxie woke as gay as a
bird, without the least recollection of the horrors she had suffered in
the night from tigers and tea-kettles.
"Wish you merry Christmas!" cried she to pale Aunt Charlotte, and sprang
out of bed with poultices on her feet to go after her Christmas
stocking.
"Well, is this the little girl they thought was so sick," said Dr.
Pulsifer, when he arrived at noon, and found her and Milly lying on the
rug, with a pair of twin dolls between them dressed just alike, and each
with a fur cap on its head.
He felt Flaxie's pulse and looked at her tongue, and said he "shouldn't
waste any of his nice medicine on _her_."
"But my cold isn't good at all, now honest; and my throat's a little
sore--I guess," said Flaxie, drawing a long face, and feeling rather
ashamed not to be sick now, when the doctor had been sent for on
purpose!
"Never mind! If you don't need me, your aunt does. What do you think of
yourself, you little piece of mischief, running away in the night, and
frightening people so that they are sick abed Christmas day?"
All Flaxie's good time was over in a minute. _Was_ auntie sick abed
up-stairs? Was that why Flaxie hadn't seen her since morning?
"Oh, mayn't I go look at her?" said she, after the doctor had left. And
Uncle Ben consented, thinking she wouldn't stay a minute.
"Oh, I'm so sorry! I do love you dearly," cried penitent Flaxie,
climbing upon the bed and cuddling close to the white auntie. "_Did_ I
make you sick? I didn't mean to; and I don't 'member anything about the
tea-kettle."
"There, there, dear, don't cry."
"I oughtn't to stayed up-stairs yesterday in the cold," went on Flaxie,
determined to free her mind. "That was the wickedest thing! But you were
just as good as you could be, if you _did_ trim the church; and I'll
never do so again!"
"Oh, hush, dear; you shake the bed."
"I'm real bad in here, in my s-o-ul!" wailed Flaxie, squeezing her
eyelids together tight, and laying her hand on her stomach. "Why don't
God make me beautiful inside o' my soul?"
"Ask Him, dear child!"
"Will He?" said Flaxie, earnestly. "Oh, yes, I know;" and her eager face
fell. "But He'll have to make me homely to do it, just like Miss Pike."
"Oh, no, my darling."
"Won't He? See what a orful cole-sore I've got on my mouth. If it would
stay there, and stick on always, do you s'pose I'd grow good?" asked
Flaxie, thoughtfully.
Aunt Charlotte almost smiled.
"'Cause I'm willing to be a little homely,--now truly--if I can have a
nice so-o-ul," added the child, with a true and deep feeling of her own
naughtiness that I am sure the angels must have been glad to see.
But she was shaking the bed again, and Uncle Ben drew her gently away,
and took her down stairs in his arms to finish the rest of her "crazy
Christmas."