TORMENTING MERCY
After they had awakened Tubby and urged him into something resembling
a trot they got into Cheslow proper by degrees. By the light of the
very sunshiny afternoon Ruth thought the town looked far prettier than
any place she had ever seen. This side of the railroad the houses were
mostly old-fashioned, and there were few stores. There were many lawns
and pretty, old-time gardens, while the elms and maples met in green
arches overhead so that many of the streets were like rustic tunnels,
the sun sifting through the thick branches to make only a fine,
lacework pattern upon the walks and driveway.
They crossed the railroad near the station and struck into Market
Street. Ruth would not allow Helen to drive her directly to the Curtis
cottage. She had remembered Doctor Davison's words, and she thought
that perhaps Mercy Curtis might be looking from the window and see her
visitor arrive in the pony cart. So she got down at the corner,
promising to meet her friend at that spot in an hour.
She could see the pretty cottage belonging to the railroad station
agent before she had walked far. Its garden on the side was already a
bower. But the rustic arbor on which the grape vines were trained was
not yet sufficiently covered to yield any shelter from the street;
therefore Ruth did not expect to find it occupied.
Just before she reached the cottage, however, she saw two little girls
ahead of her, hesitating on the walk. They were talking seriously
together when Ruth approached within earshot, and she heard one say to
the other:
"Now, she'll be there in the window. We mustn't notice her, no matter
what she does or says. You know what mamma said."
The other child was sobbing softly. "But she made me, oh, such a face!
And she chopped her teeth at me just as though she'd bite me! I think
she's the very hatefulest thing--"
"Hush! she's greatly to be pitied," said the older sister, with an air
and in a tone that showed she copied it from the "grown-ups" whom she
had heard discussing poor Mercy Curtis.
"I wish we'd gone 'round the other way," complained the other child.
"Now, come on. You needn't look into the window and smile. I'll do
that."
"No," said the little one, stubbornly. "I'll go by on the opposite
side of the way. And you must come, too, Anna. She--she'd bite me if
she could get the chance."
"Oh, well! Come on, little silly!" said her sister, and the two
crossed over and Ruth, who watched them interestedly, saw them hurry
by the cottage with scarcely a glance at the front windows.
But Ruth could see the outline of the lame girl's figure at one of the
windows and she saw a lean fist shaken in the air at the two children
going by. She could imagine the face Mercy Curtis "pulled," as well,
and did not wonder that the two little ones took to their heels and
ran away as fast as ever they could.
But, thus prepared for an unpleasant greeting from, the unfortunate
and much to be pitied Mercy, Ruth smiled happily herself and waved her
hand at the lame girl's window. Mercy saw her and, for a moment, was
stricken with surprise so that she could neither greet her with frown
or smile. She knew the girl from the Red Mill, although she had seen
her so many weeks before; but Ruth ran into the yard and up the porch
steps at the side of the house, and knocked at the door before the
lame girl recovered from her amazement.
The motherly Mrs. Curtis came to the door and, the moment she saw who
it was, received Ruth with open arms.
"You dear child! I am so glad you have come again. Did Doctor Davison
tell you?" she whispered.
"He told me that Mercy would be glad to see me again; but I should
have come before, as I promised, if I could have gotten in," Ruth
said. "Will she see me?"
"She is not so well to-day," sighed the harassed mother. "This is one
of her days of torment. I do not know how she will treat you, Ruth
Fielding; but don't mind what she says to you, dear. Your being here
will take her mind off her pain and off her own self."
Ruth laid aside her hat and coat and went into the sitting room. The
crippled girl was in her wheel chair by the window. The instant Ruth
entered she seized the wheels on either side and propelled the chair
across the room in a sudden dash that threatened to run her visitor
down. And her face was screwed up into such a mean look, and her eyes
flashed so angrily, that Ruth was startled for a moment. But she stood
her ground and instead of colliding with her, the nervous hands
brought the chair to a sudden stop right before her.
"Thought you were going to be run down; didn't you?" snapped Mercy.
"I'd ought to break your legs--you run on them so fine. Showing off;
wasn't you?"
She was offended because Ruth had run so lightly into the cottage and
the girl from the Red Mill made a decision there and then that she
would never come in to see Mercy again saving at a sedate walk. But
she laughed lightly, and said:
"Do you want me to come on crutches, Mercy? That wouldn't help you a
bit."
She put out her hand to take the lame girl's, but Mercy struck it
smartly with her own, then whirled her chair around and returned to
her former position by the window. She handled the wheel chair with
remarkable dexterity, and Ruth, following her and taking a neighboring
chair said:
"How quick you are! You get around your room so nicely. I think that's
fine."
"You do; do you?" snapped the cripple. "If you'd been tied to this
chair like I have, you'd be quick, too. I suppose it's something for
me to be grateful for; eh?"
"It must be a lot better than lying abed all the time," said Ruth,
quietly.
"Oh, yes! I suppose so!" snapped Mercy. Her conversation was mostly
made up of snaps and snarls. "Everybody tells me all about how happy I
ought to be because I'm not worse off than I am. That's their
tormenting ways--I know 'em! There!" she added, looking out of the
window. "Here's another of those dratted young ones!"
Ruth glanced out, too. A lady was coming along the walk holding a
little boy by the hand. Before they reached the cottage the little boy
said something to his mother and then broke away from her hand and
went to the other side of her, nearest the curb.
"There! he's hiding from me," said Mercy, bitterly.
The lady looked up and smiled pleasantly, but the cripple only
returned her pleasant salutation with a cold nod. The child peeped out
from around his mother's skirt.
"There! go along, you nasty little thing!" muttered Mercy. "See him
trot on his little fat legs. I wish a dog would bite 'em!" It was
useless, Ruth saw, to try and bring the cripple to a better mind. But
she ignored her sallies at people who went by the window, and began to
talk about the Red Mill and all that had happened to her since she had
come to live with Uncle Jabez. Gradually she drew Mercy's attention
from the street. She told about the flood, and how she, with Helen and
Tom, had raced in the big automobile down the river road to warn the
people that the water was coming. Mercy's eyes grew big with wonder
and she listened with increasing interest.
"That's a nice place to live--that mill," the cripple finally
admitted, grudgingly. "And it's right on the river, too!"
"I can look 'way up and down the river from my window the first thing
when I get up in the morning," Ruth said. "It's very pretty at
sunrise. And then, the orchard and the fields are pretty. And I like
to see the men ploughing and working the land. And the garden stuff is
all coming up so pretty and green."
"I've got a garden, too. But it's not warm enough yet to plant many
flower seeds," said Mercy.
"I suppose, when it comes warm, you can sit out in the arbor?"
"When the grape leaves get big enough to hide me--yes," said Mercy.
"I don't go into the garden excepting in schooltime. Then the young
ones aren't always running by and tormenting me," snapped the cripple,
chopping off her speech at the end.
She was a self-tormentor. It was plain that the poor child made
herself very miserable by believing that everybody possessing a strong
back and lively legs felt his or her superiority to her and delighted
in "showing off" before her. The girl of the Red Mill felt only pity
for a sufferer possessing such an unfortunate disposition.
She tried to turn the conversation always into pleasant channels. She
held Mercy's interest in the Red Mill and her life there. She told her
of the broods of downy chicks that she cared for, and the
butter-making, and the household tasks she was able to help Aunt
Alviry about.
"And don't you go to school?" demanded Mercy.
"I am going now. I hope this spring and summer to prepare myself for
entering the Cheslow High."
"And then you'll be in town every day?" said Mercy, with one of her
occasional wistful looks.
"I hope to. I don't know how I will get here. But I mean to try. Miss
Cramp says if I'll come two or three times a week this summer, after
our school closes, that she will help me to prepare for the High School
exams., so I can enter at the beginning of the fall term.
"I know Miss Cramp," said Mercy. "She lives on this street. You'll be
so busy then that you'll never get in to see me at all, I suppose."
"Why, I can come much oftener," cried Ruth. "Of course I will."
If Mercy was pleased by this statement, she would not show it.
"I studied to enter High," she said, after a little silence. "But
what's the use? I'll never go to school again. Reading books isn't any
fun. Just studying, and studying, and studying doesn't get you
anywhere."
"Why, I should think that would be nice," Ruth declared. "You've got
so much chance to study. You see, you don't have to work around the
house, or outside, and so you have all your time to devote to study. I
should like that."
"Yah!" snarled Mercy, in her most unpleasant way. "That's what you
say. I wish you were here to try it, and I could be out to the Red
Mill." Then she paid more softly: "I'd like to see that mill and the
river--and all the things you tell about."
"You wait!" cried Ruth. "I'll ask Uncle Jabez and Aunt Alviry. Maybe
we can fix it so you could come out and see me. Wouldn't that be
fine?"
"Yah!" snarled the cripple again. "I'll never get that far away from
this old chair."
"Perhaps not; but you might bring the chair with you," returned Ruth,
unshaken. "Wait till vacation. I'll not give up the idea until I've
seen if it can't be arranged."
That the thought pleased Mercy, the cripple could not deny. Her eyes
shone and a warmth of unusual color appeared in her thin cheeks. Her
mother came in with a tray of cakes and lemonade, and Mercy became
quite pleasant as she did the honors. Having already eaten her fill at
the doctor's, Ruth found it a little difficult to do justice to this
collation; but she would not hurt Mercy's feelings by refusing.
The hour passed in more pleasant converse. The cripple's mind was
evidently coaxed from its wrong and unhappy thoughts. When Ruth rose
to leave, promising to come again as soon as she could get into town,
Mercy was plainly softened.
"You just hate to come--I know you do!" she said, but she said it
wistfully. "Everybody hates to come to see me. But I don't mind having
you come as much as I do them. Oh, yes; you can come again if you
will," and she gave Ruth her hand at parting.
Mrs. Curtis put her arms about the girl from the Red Mill and kissed
her warmly at the door.
"Dear, dear!" said the cripple's mother, "how your own mother would
have loved you, if she had lived until now. You are like sunshine in
the house."
So, after waving her hand and smiling at the cripple in the window,
Ruth went slowly back to the corner to meet Helen, and found herself
wiping some tender tears from her eyes because of Mrs. Curtis's words.