Peggy Raymond's Vacation Part 14

The appet.i.te of the yellow hen was not the least impaired by the family disaster. She gobbled down her corn meal with a dispatch which argued indifference to the possibility that there might not be enough left for her offspring. Then while Peggy and Graham made ready a little grave for the victim of maternal clumsiness, the others flocked back to the house discussing the calamity. Reluctantly Ruth resumed her duties, and her sense of resentment grew rapidly, as she listened to the excited chatter of her companions. All this fuss about a dead chicken, and not a word of sympathy for her sufferings. Ruth was rapidly approaching the point of extreme unreasonableness.

A long walk was the first of the festivities scheduled for the eventful last day. The boys had discovered a view that they were very anxious to have the others see, and even Aunt Abigail, who was not a great success as a pedestrian, had decided to go along. Ruth was putting on her wide brimmed shade hat, when a wave of faintness swept over her, and for a minute everything turned black. Then she recovered herself, and saw a white face with unnaturally large eyes staring back at her from the mirror.

"I--I don't believe I'll go," said Ruth in an uncertain voice, in which there was no suggestion of heroism.

"Go?" Amy was down on her hands and knees, looking for a pin in the cracks of the floor. "Of course you'll go. Don't be grumpy."

Grumpy! And after she had endured so much to avoid casting a shadow over the spirits of the party. Ruth frowned on her, but in silence. It seemed to her that she had never before realized the amount of selfishness in the world. n.o.body cared what she suffered. Her dearest friends, her own brother were prodigies of inconsiderateness. With an effort she kept back the burning tears of self pity, and tottered down the stairs, prepared to endure the martyrdom of a long walk under the July sun.

"Ruth," called Peggy from the pantry, "just help me with these sandwiches, will you?" They were coming home for the midday meal, but Peggy had determined to carry along a few sandwiches, as country-grown appet.i.tes seemed independent of the limitations of those appet.i.tes with which she was best acquainted.

Ruth rose to obey. But her indisposition was becoming more than a match for her will. She was half way across the room, when she halted, swayed, and crumpled up in a little helpless heap. Graham was too late to save her from falling, but he had her in his arms almost as soon as she touched the floor, and carried her to the couch, turning pale himself at the sight of her colorless face.

From all directions the girls came running. As usual, Peggy took command.

"She's fainted, Graham, that's all. Bring some water. We must get the sofa cus.h.i.+ons out from under her head. Bring that palm-leaf fan, Amy.

There, she's coming to already."

The eyelids of the forlorn heroine had indeed fluttered encouragingly. A moment later Ruth opened her eyes. As her languid gaze travelled around the circle of faces, she saw consternation written on each one. Peggy patted her hand tenderly.

"Don't try to speak, darling. You fainted, that's all."

"Could you drink a little water, dearie," coaxed Priscilla, bending over her, gla.s.s in hand.

"Here, let me lift her." Graham rushed forward, thankful for the opportunity to do something, as he found the sense of helplessness characteristic of his s.e.x in all such crises extremely galling.

Ruth felt it inc.u.mbent on herself to relieve the general anxiety. "It's only one of my headaches," she explained faintly. "I ought to have given up to it. But I hated to spoil Graham's last day."

There was a little chorus of mingled disapproval and admiration. "You dear plucky thing!" cried Peggy. "And here I've been ordering you around all the morning. Those pan-cakes must have been torture."

"As if Jack and I wouldn't have waited over another day!" exclaimed Graham in a tone of disgust. "We'd rather have waited a week, than have you put yourself through like this," He smoothed her ruffled hair with awkward tenderness, and Amy, carried away by her emotions, fanned so vehemently that she tapped the patient on the nose, and was sharply reprimanded.

The tears Ruth had been holding back all the morning could no longer be restrained. They overran her trembling lids, and streamed down her cheeks. The little murmurs of soothing sympathy were redoubled, though Graham walked off quickly to the window and stood looking out with a stern, fixed gaze, as if the landscape had suddenly become of absorbing interest. But Ruth's tears were not wrung from her by suffering. They were tears of penitence and honest shame. How dear and kind every one was! How cruelly she had misjudged the world when she had called it inconsiderate. And the course of conduct which in the morning had seemed to her admirable and heroic, suddenly appeared foolish in the extreme.

The faint tinge of color showing in her white cheeks was not an indication of returning strength so much as of mortification.

The departure of Jack and Graham was immediately put off till Ruth should be well enough to take part in the fun which was to serve as a climax to the visit. For the remainder of the day, Ruth found herself the centre of attraction in Dolittle Cottage. She lay at ease on the couch, with wet compresses on her forehead. The shutters were closed to keep out the suns.h.i.+ne. Every one walked on tiptoe, and spoke in subdued accents. Even the fly-away Dorothy sought the invalid at frequent intervals to murmur, "Poor Rufie! Poor Rufie," and to pat Ruth's arm with a sympathetic little hand. Now that it had gained its point, the headache decreased in severity, but had the pain been far more violent, Ruth would have minded it less than sundry pangs of conscience which would not allow her to forget that she really was undeserving of all this tender consideration.

By the end of the afternoon she was able to sit up and to share in the general excitement which welcomed Amy on her return from the village.

Several days before, Amy had carried down a roll of films to be developed at the local photographer's, and was now bringing back a neat little package of prints. "Oh, the flash-light picture is here, isn't it?" exclaimed Ruth, to whose chair the package had been brought immediately, while the others stood around awaiting their turn. "I want to see that first."

Amy looked a trifle discomfited.

"Yes, it's here," she replied. "But the photographer said if I wanted to be a success I'd have to learn to flatter people more. He said that he learned that long ago."

The flash-light picture was certainly far from flattering. The brilliant light had caused every pair of eyes to roll heavenward, till only the whites were visible, so that the group looked not unlike a company of inmates of a blind asylum, posing for a photograph. But the missing eyes were not the only startling features of this remarkable picture. Several mouths were open to their widest extent, and except for the face of Jack Rynson, who was a young man with an unusual capacity for self-control, every countenance was convulsed by an agitation whose exciting cause was left to the imagination of the beholder.

Ruth laughed over the flash-light picture till she cried, and declared that it had almost cured her headache. When Graham helped her up the stairs that night, she startled him by leaning up against him to laugh again. "I was thinking of Claire's picture in the flash-light," she explained, as her brother looked down at her anxiously. "Poor Claire!

I'm afraid she felt more like crying than laughing."

"'Tisn't every girl that's as plucky as my little sister," said Graham, tightening his clasp about her. Ruth's laughter ended abruptly. "Oh, don't, Graham," she pleaded, as if distressed by his praise. "If you only knew--" And there she stopped. It was quite enough for Ruth Wylie to know the true inwardness of that day; a day, Ruth was certain, that would never, never be duplicated in her experience.

CHAPTER X

MRS. SNOOKS' EDUCATION

For the next few days Ruth continued to be the centre of the life of the cottage. All the fun was planned with due regard to her lack of strength. At almost every meal some little extra delicacy appeared beside her plate. Whatever impatience Graham and Jack may have felt over the further postponement of their tramp, they concealed the feeling with remarkable tact. There was little danger however, that the unusual attentions showered on Ruth would turn her head, as she had a counter-irritant in the shape of a firm conviction that she did not deserve any of this spontaneous kindness.

It was a day or two after her unsuccessful attempt to enact the role of heroine that Graham arrived at the cottage at an early hour and in a noticeable state of indignation. In spite of Ruth's protests that she was quite well enough to a.s.sist in the work of the morning, the girls had unanimously scoffed at the suggestion, and had forcibly seated her in one of the porch rockers and thrust a late magazine in her hands. But by the time Graham arrived, the magazine had slipped to the floor and Ruth sitting with folded hands, was able to give her brother her undivided attention.

"It's the most extraordinary thing," Graham sat down on the steps at Ruth's feet, and fanned his flushed face with his hat. "Have you missed anything that belongs to you, lately?"

"Why, no! Have you found anything?"

"That's what I'm going to tell you. To start at the beginning, the first night Jack and I slept at Mrs. Snooks', we weren't warm enough. There weren't many covers on the bed, and in this hilly country the nights are cool, even when the days are pretty warm. So, in the morning, I spoke to Mrs. Snooks, and said we'd like some extra bedding, and she promised to attend to it."

Ruth's face had crinkled suddenly into a smile of comprehension, which Graham was too absorbed to notice.

"Well, that night a steamer rug appeared on the bed. It wasn't exactly a success. You know a steamer rug's too narrow to cover two people properly. If it was over Jack, I was left out in the cold, and _vice versa_. We had to take turns s.h.i.+vering. After one of us got to the point where his teeth chattered, he'd s.n.a.t.c.h the rug off the other fellow and warm up. But it wasn't till this morning that I took any particular notice of that rug. And Ruth, it belongs to us!"

Graham looked at his sister with an air of expecting her to be greatly surprised. Translating her smile into an expression of incredulity, he began to prove his a.s.sertion.

"Yes, I know it sounds absurd, but I'm not mistaken, Ruth. I suppose two rugs might be of the same pattern, but it's hardly likely they would have the identical ink-spots. Don't you remember how I spilled the ink on that rug when I was getting over the measles? And down in the corner is part of a tag Uncle John had sewed on, when he borrowed it for his trip abroad. The 'Wylie' is torn off but 'John G.' is left. And now the question is--"

Ruth's laughter could no longer be restrained. "Oh, Graham, she borrowed it."

"Borrowed it!" repeated the amazed Graham. "Well, I like that."

"She rushed down here the morning after you came and said she had an extra bed to make, and would we lend her a little bedding. Of course we didn't have any bedding to spare. We'd only brought enough for ourselves and hardly that, for it's cooler here than we expected. But the steamer rug was lying around and we thought we could let her take that."

"But she must have bedding of her own," insisted Graham. "What does she do in the winter time?"

"That's the funny thing about Mrs. Snooks. She borrows dust-pans, and flat-irons and all sorts of necessary things and you feel sure that she hasn't been doing without them all her life. And the queerest part of all is that she acts so aggrieved if we refuse. If we tell her that we're out of sugar, she seems as indignant as if we kept a store, and it was our business to have sugar for everybody."

Peggy came out on the porch at that moment, and listened with interest, not unmixed with indignation, to Graham's account of his discovery.

"Sometimes I think the trouble with that woman is that she's formed an appet.i.te for borrowing, just like an appet.i.te for drugs, you know."

Peggy laughed as she added, "Perhaps I ought not to say a great deal just now, as long as I'm going borrowing myself. I've just discovered that we haven't any ginger in the house, and I've set my heart on gingerbread for dinner."

"Why don't you borrow it of Mrs. Snooks?" cried Ruth. "It's time we were getting a little return for what we've lent her."

Peggy hesitated. "I don't know why I shouldn't," she acknowledged frankly. "If it isn't very convenient for her to lend it, perhaps she'll realize that her borrowing may inconvenience other people sometimes."

It was while Peggy was absent on this errand that the plot was formed.

Gradually the group on the piazza had increased till only Peggy and Dorothy were missing. Not unnaturally the conversation concerned itself with Mrs. Snooks' peculiarities, and the undeniable disadvantages of having her for a neighbor. Graham's story of the steamer rug was matched by equally harrowing tales of useful articles borrowed with the promise of an immediate return, and missed when wanted most.

"Peggy imagines that she's going to teach Mrs. Snooks a lesson by borrowing a little ginger of her," Ruth said with a shake of her head.