Miss Prudence Part 14

"Doesn't your head ache?" asked Linnet, guiding her steps as her head rested against her mother's breast.

"No."

"Don't you ache _anywhere?_" questioned her mother, as they led her to the lounge.

"No, ma'am. Why should I? I didn't fall."

Linnet brought the pillow and comforter, and then ran out through the back yard calling, "Father! Father!"

Down the road Hollis heard the agonized cry, and turning hastened back to the house.

"Oh, go for the doctor quick!" cried Linnet, catching him by the arm; "something dreadful has happened to Marjorie, and she doesn't know what it is."

"Is there a horse in the stable?"

"Oh, no, I forgot. And mother forgot Father has gone to town."

"I'll get a horse then--somewhere on the road--don't be so frightened.

Dr. Peck will be here in twenty minutes after I find him."

Linnet flew back to satisfy her mother that the doctor had been sent for, and found Marjorie reiterating to her mother's repeated inquiries:

"I don't ache anywhere; I'm not hurt at all."

"Where were you, child."

"I wasn't--anywhere," she was about to say, then smiled, for she knew she must have been somewhere.

"What happened after you said good-bye to Hollis?" questioned Linnet, falling on her knees beside her little sister, and almost taking her into her arms.

"Nothing."

"Oh, dear, you're crazy!" sobbed Linnet.

Marjorie smiled faintly and lifted her hand to stroke Linnet's cheeks.

"I won't hurt _you_," she comforted tenderly.

"I know what I'll do!" exclaimed Mrs. West suddenly and emphatically, "I can put hot water on that b.u.mp; I've heard that's good."

Marjorie closed her eyes and lay still; she was tired of talking about something that had not happened at all. She remembered afterward that the doctor came and opened a vein in her arm, and that he kept the blood flowing until she answered "Yes, sir," to his question, "Does your head hurt you _now_?" She remembered all their faces--how Linnet cried and sobbed, how Hollis whispered, "I'll get a pitcher, Mousie, if I have to go to China for it," and how her father knelt by the lounge when he came home and learned that it had happened and was all over, how he knelt and thanked G.o.d for giving her back to them all out of her great danger. That night her mother sat by her bedside all night long, and she remembered saying to her:

"If I had been killed, I should have waked up in Heaven without knowing that I had died. It would have been like going to Heaven without dying."

V.

TWO PROMISES.

"He who promiseth runs in debt."

Hollis held a mysterious looking package in his hand when he came in the next day; it was neatly done up in light tissue paper and tied with yellow cord. It looked round and flat, not one bit like a pitcher, unless some pitchers a hundred years ago _were_ flat.

Marjorie lay in delicious repose upon the parlor sofa, with the green blinds half closed, the drowsiness and fragrance of clover in the air soothed her, rather, quieted her, for she was not given to nervousness; a feeling of safety enwrapped her, she was _here_ and not very much hurt, and she was loved and petted to her heart's content. And that is saying a great deal for Marjorie, for _her_ heart's content was a very large content. Linnet came in softly once in a while to look at her with anxious eyes and to ask, "How do you feel now?" Her mother wandered in and out as if she could rest in nothing but in looking at her, and her father had given her one of his glad kisses before he went away to the mowing field. Several village people having heard of the accident through Hollis and the doctor had stopped at the door to inquire with a sympathetic modulation of voice if she were any better. But the safe feeling was the most blessed of all. Towards noon she lay still with her white kitten cuddled up in her arms, wondering who would come next; Hollis had not come, nor Miss Prudence, nor the new minister, nor grandma, nor Josie Grey; she was wis.h.i.+ng they would all come to-day when she heard a quick step on the piazza and a voice calling out to somebody.

"I won't stay five minutes, father."

The next instant the handsome, cheery face was looking in at the parlor door and the boisterous "vacation" voice was greeting her with,

"Well, Miss Mousie! How about the tumble down now?"

But her eyes saw nothing excepting the mysterious, flat, round parcel in his hand.

"Oh, Hollis, I'm so glad!" she exclaimed, raising herself upon one elbow.

The stiff blue muslin was rather crumpled by this time, and in place of the linen collar and old-fas.h.i.+oned pin her mother had tied a narrow scarf of white lace about her throat; her hair was brushed back and braided in two heavy braids and her forehead was bandaged in white.

"Well, Marjorie, you _are_ a picture, I must say," he cried, bounding in.

"Why don't you jump up and take another climb?"

"I want to. I want to see the swallow's nest again; I meant to have fed the swallows last night"

"Where are they?"

"Oh, up in the eaves. Linnet and I have climbed up and fed them."

As he dropped on his knees on the carpet beside the sofa she fell back on her pillow.

"Father is waiting for me to go to town with him and I can't stay. You will soon be climbing up to see the swallows again and hunting eggs and everything as usual."

"Oh, yes, indeed," said Marjorie, hopefully.

Watching her face he laid the parcel in her hand. "Don't open it till I'm gone. I had something of a time to get it. The old fellow was as obstinate as a mule when he saw that my heart was set on it. Mother hadn't a thing old enough--I ransacked everywhere--if I'd had time to go to grandmother's I might have done better. She's ninety-three, you know, and has some of her grandmother's things. This thing isn't a beauty to look at, but it's old, and that's the chief consideration. Extreme old age will compensate for its ugliness; which is an extenuation that I haven't for mine. I'm going to-morrow."

"Oh, I want to see it," she exclaimed, not regarding his last remark.

"That's all you care," he said, disappointedly. "I thought you would be sorry that I'm going."

"You know I am," she returned penitently, picking at the yellow cord.

"Perhaps when I am two hundred years old you'll be as anxious to look at me as you are to look at that!"

"Oh, Hollis, I do thank you so."

"But you must promise me two things or you can't have it!"