The Twin Cousins Part 11

"Oh, I like it," said Mrs. Hunter, pleasantly; "but don't you think, Mrs. Allen, there is danger of her pounding your piano in pieces?"

But by and by there wasn't so much time for music and play. The busy season had begun, when everybody was making ready for Christmas; and the twin cousins had as much as they could do in talking over what they were _going_ to do, as they sat in each other's lap and looked at their work-baskets.

Flaxie wanted to make a marvellous silk bedquilt for her dear mamma out of pieces as big as a dollar; but, finding there wouldn't be time for that, concluded to buy her a paper of needles, "if it didn't cost too much."

Probably there wouldn't have been anything done but talking if Aunt Charlotte hadn't brought out some worsteds and canvas and set the helpless little ones at work upon a holder called the "Country Cousin."

They had a hard time over this young lady, and almost wished sometimes that she had never been born; but she turned out very brilliant at last, in a yellow skirt, red waist, and blue bonnet, with a green parasol over her head. After this they had courage to make some worsted b.a.l.l.s for the babies, some cologne mats for their brothers who never used cologne, and some court-plaster cases for somebody else, with the motto, "I stick to you when others cut you."

Both the children were tired with all this labor, and Flaxie discovered, after her presents were packed and ready to send off by express, that she didn't feel very well.

"My throat is so sore I can't _swoler_,"--so she wrote on a postal to her mother; for when she was sick she wanted everybody to know it.

Before Aunt Charlotte heard of the sad condition of her throat, she had said she might go with Milly and Johnny and some of the older children in the village, to see the ladies trim the church. But when Flaxie came into the parlor with her teeth chattering, Aunt Charlotte began to fear she ought not to go out.

"Are you so very chilly, my dear?"

"Yes 'm, I am," replied Flaxie, with a doleful look around the corners of her mouth. "This house isn't heated by steam like my house where I live, and I'm drefful easy to freeze!" And her teeth chattered again.

Aunt Charlotte looked anxious, as she drew on her gloves.

"My child, you'd better not go to the church, for it's rather cold there."

"Cold as a barn," put in Johnny.

"Oh, auntie, do please, lemme go! I'm cold, but it's a _warm_ cold though," said Flaxie, eagerly; and her teeth stopped chattering.

"I'm sorry, Flaxie, but there's a chill in the air like snow, and if your throat is sore it is much wiser for you to stay at home," said Aunt Charlotte, gently but firmly, like a good mother who is accustomed to be obeyed by her children.

And poor Flaxie was obliged to submit, though it cut her to the heart when Milly gave her a light kiss and skipped away; and she did think it was cruel in Aunt Charlotte to advise her to go into the nursery and stay with Nancy and the baby. She wished she had never said a word about her throat.

"It don't feel any worse'n a mosquito-bite," thought she, watching the gay party from the window,--half a dozen ladies and as many children; "it don't hurt me to swallow either,"--swallowing her tears.

"Hilltop's such a queer place! Not the least speck of steam in the houses! If they had steam, you could go anywhere, if your throat _was_ sore! And I never saw anybody trim a church; and oh, Milly says they'll have _beau_-tiful flowers, and crosses, and things! _I_ never saw anybody trim _anything_--'cept a loaf of cake and flowers on a bonnet."

Foolish Flaxie, to stand there winking tears into her eyes! _You_ would have known better; you would have gone into the nursery to play with that lovely baby; but there were times, I am sorry to say, when Flaxie really enjoyed being unhappy. So now she stood still, rolling her little trouble over and over, as boys roll a s...o...b..ll, making it larger and larger, till presently it was as big as a mountain.

"Auntie _said_ I might go, and then she wouldn't lemme! Made me stay at home to play with that ole baby! He's squirmy and wigglesome; what do I want to play with _him_ for, when she _said_ I might go? I like good aunties; I don't like the kind that tell lies.

"Oh, my throat _is_ growing sore, and I'm going off up-stairs to stay in the cold, and get sick, 'cause they ought to keep steam; and _then_ I guess auntie'll be sorry!"

I grieve to tell you this about Flaxie, for I fear you will not like a little girl who could be so very naughty.

When the happy party of church-trimmers came home at tea-time, there she was up-stairs in the "doleful dumps;" and it was a long while before Milly could coax her down.

When she came at last, her face was a sight to behold--all purple, and spotted, and striped; for a fit of crying always gave her the appearance of measles. She consented to take a seat at table, but ate little, said nothing, and gazed mournfully at her plate.

This distressed Aunt Charlotte, but she asked no questions, and tried to keep Johnny talking, so he would not notice his afflicted little cousin.

"Now what _does_ make you act so?" asked Milly, as soon as tea was over.

"'Got a _cricket_ in my neck; Can't move it a single speck,'"

replied Flaxie, not knowing she had made poetry, till Johnny, who was supposed to be ever so far off, began to laugh; and then she moved her neck fast enough, and shook her head, and stamped her foot.

"Let's go in the nursery, so Johnny can't plague you," said the peace-loving Milly. "I'm so sorry you're sick."

Flaxie had not meant to speak, but she could not help talking to Milly.

"Wish I'se at home," said she, reproachfully, "'cause my mamma keeps pepmint."

"Why, Flaxie, my mamma keeps it too. We've got lots and lots of it in the cupboard."

"Don't care if you have," snapped Flaxie. "I just despise pepmint. It's something else I want, and can't think of the name of; but I know you don't keep it, for your papa isn't a doctor!"

It was not the first time Flaxie had wounded her sweet cousin's feelings by this same cutting remark.

"Dr. Papa keeps _t.i.ttlish_ powders in blue and white papers, and one of the papers _buzzes_. I guess he'd give me that, but I don't know," added Flaxie, crying again harder than ever, though the tears fell like fire on her poor, sore cheeks.

CHAPTER VIII.

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 was.h.i.+ng 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. n.o.body 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.