benedicta’s tardy presence was briefly apologized for.
“work’s more necessary ’n party suppers,” she said succinctly.
“i saw yer peekin’ through the trees!” piped up grissel.
a pink flush on benedicta’s cheek was the only response, and polly quickly filled up the break with a laughable little nothing which turned the children’s attention away from the housekeeper.
benedicta did more than her share of wheeling the children home, as if to make amends for her afternoon’s neglect. when the patients were abed she stole out to the veranda where polly was sitting.
“come for a little walk!” she said. “don’t you want to?”
they went silently down the steps arm in arm.
“i guess you thought it was queer,” she began, “leavin’ you so sudden; but that kid was there! how’d she come to be up here on the hill, anyhow?”
polly explained.
“oh, that’s it! she lives clear the other side o’ the town, and i couldn’t understand.”
[196] for a moment the only sound was that of a lone insect. then polly said, “nice little girl she seems to be.”
“m-h’m,” assented benedicta.
“do you know anything about this sister that has never walked?” questioned polly.
“not much more ’n you do.”
“oscarlucy seems willing to do anything for rosalind.”
“such a name for a kid!” sniffed benedicta.
“rosalind?”
“m-m. i s’pose it’s well enough if you like such a hifaluting. it’s her grandmother’s doin’s—she’s the queerest! why, miss polly, she’s a regular heathen!”
“heathen! what do you mean?”
“just what i say! democrats all are!”
“benedicta!” laughed polly. “i never knew a democrat that was a heathen.”
“well, i have! i don’t see how anybody can be a christian and be a democrat.”
“i know a good many nice democrats,” smiled polly.
“may be ‘nice democrats,’” scorned the woman, “but i guess ther’ ain’t anything else nice about ’em!”
“oh, yes!—”
“see here, miss polly dudley!”—benedicta’s eyes gleamed excitedly—“be you a democrat?”
[197] “no,” polly laughed, “my people have always been republicans; but—”
“well, i’m thankful for that!” benedicta breathed a big sigh of relief. “for a minute i was scared—clean scared!”
“i never stop to ask what party claims my friends,” returned polly, “although i will acknowledge that i am rather pleased when i discover that we are of the same political belief.”
“you ought to be!” replied the housekeeper with emphasis. “i don’t have any use for a republican that gallivants round with democrats—much less marries ’em!”
polly marveled, musing over the situation. on what was benedicta’s antagonism founded?
the housekeeper went on, mixing her pronouns.
“’tain’t the only thing she’s done, by a long-short; i could tell you plenty. but she won’t ever walk—they might know that. ser—her grandfather does know it, but oscarlucy—silliest name!—is as crazy as—her grandmother. why, the kid never ’s walked a step! of course, it stands to reason that her legs are all out o’ kilter. they’ve spent lots o’ money on her;—but i s’pose she went through with all that.”
“she told me they had consulted seven physicians. it looks to me as if the case was beyond medical skill; yet, my father has done unbelievable things along that line.”
“he’ll never cure rosalind ferne!—did you[198] ever hear such a melligenous name? if it was mine, i’d apply to the courts and have it changed.”
“i never heard ‘ferne’ before,” said polly.
“why, she’s had rickets!” continued benedicta. “they say it was the milk; but i don’ know. why didn’t they find out. if i’d been there, i’ll bet i’d ’a’ known before night what the reason was that baby kept growin’ thin! huh, such a grandmother!”
“you don’t seem to like her,” remarked polly.
“like her!” was the vindictive retort.
benedicta said no more, and the two soon returned to the house.
for three days nothing was heard from oscarlucy ferne. then grocer jack brought up to polly a tiny note torn from a bit of brown paper. it read, “i am coming this afternoon at two o’clock.”
at the time named polly was at the foot of the hill road, but the children were not in sight. after waiting a long ten minutes she drove ahead slowly, keeping a sharp lookout on all sides for a little girl and a cart and a littler girl. yet her watching brought her no sight of them. at last, she was about to go back to the place she had started from, when she heard a clatter from behind, and in a moment a horse and wagon appeared, and she saw the familiar face of grocer jack and received the information that they thought they could never catch up. on the seat beside the man[199] were oscarlucy and a fairy-like little creature with big sky-blue eyes and a mop of fly-away, sunny hair.
“you see,” explained oscarlucy, “mr. jack had to carry a barrel of flour ’way up to james street, and that’s why we didn’t get there early enough. we were so afraid you’d keep right on, and we couldn’t get you. mr. jack said he knew it was you, because you’ve got such an easy number on your car. i’m glad you have,” she sighed, “or we never should have known it was you.”
polly said that she was glad of the number, and she smiled to the little fairy and thanked grocer jack. then the children were transferred from the grocery wagon to the automobile and polly learned that the tall grocer could be as gentle in the handling of a frail child as he was nonchalant in the lifting of a heavy barrel. her esteem for him increased accordingly.
“isn’t rosalind beautiful?” asked oscarlucy, after they had talked of the flowers and ferns alongside the mountain road.
polly was somewhat startled at this frank question, and she simply nodded and smiled over the head of the little one.
“’most everybody thinks i’m beautiful,” said the object of her sister’s question; “but grandmother says it is only my hair and my eyes that are so pretty, and that it is a good thing to have something nice when i can’t walk at all.”
[200] “indeed, it is,” responded polly, adding, “and i think that your hair and eyes are lovely.”
“i am glad you do,” returned the tot, “for oscarlucy was so afraid you wouldn’t. she wants me to have something, you know, to make up for the other. i guess god hadn’t the heart to make me so i couldn’t walk and then give me straight black hair and green eyes—like our kitten.”
polly smiled, and somehow managed to give a satisfactory response. what manner of five-year-old was this who talked with such charming unconsciousness about her own beauty and gave voice to original opinions respecting her creator? adroitly she led the conversation to other topics.
throughout that long afternoon benedicta was not in sight; but lilith whispered to polly that the housekeeper was preparing a most delicious-looking luncheon, which in due time appeared on the veranda,—“a truly party tea” grissel confided to jozy. and grissel knew.
rosalind and her sister enjoyed the afternoon to the utmost, if glad faces and spontaneous laughter were true signs; and polly and lilith were kept in a state of expectancy, wondering what their wee visitor would say next.
“it must have taken god an awfully long time to make me,” she remarked over the cup-cakes.
“why?” asked lilith.
“because i came so late. ’most everybody got[201] here before i did. and he took so much pains with me. look at my curls! oscarlucy has tried and tried to curl her hair so it will stay, and she never can. but god curled my hair so it stays. i think it must have taken him a long time.”
the little patients stared at the small girl in big-eyed perplexity. here was reasoning beyond their thought.
“is dr. dudley coming pretty soon?” she asked, when the goodies had gone their way of delight.
“yes,” answered polly.
“as soon as next week?”
“perhaps so.”
“as soon as to-morrow?”
“it is barely possible.”
“i hope he will,” she smiled. “i want to see him so it seems as if i couldn’t wait.”
“so do i,” laughed polly.
“but you can walk!”
polly nodded. “i want to see him because i love him so much,” she explained.
the tiny girl mused over this, and then said very softly:—
“if you love him like that, i think he will cure me. the last doctor i went to see,” she continued, “said no doctor on earth could make a child like me walk; but of course he only knew what somebody had told him, and somebody may have told him wrong. there was another doctor i liked better; he had a great deal to say about dr. dudley[202] and he told grandma that if dr. dudley could see me he thought he might sud—sud—what was it, oscarlucy, that he said dr. dudley might do?”
“suggest something,” answered her sister promptly.
“oh, yes, ‘sug-gest something,’ that was it. and if you love him so much, i am sure he will. i wish he would come to-morrow.”
and on the morrow he came, announcing, to the delight of everybody, that he was going to stay a whole week. as soon as practicable polly sent a note to oscarlucy, which she answered promptly in person and delivered her message to polly.
“grandfather won’t come—mercy, i guess he won’t! you ought to have heard him storm!—and he won’t let me come. grandmother would, but he won’t let her either. he says if dr. dudley has a mind to step in some day when he’s down to overlook, and he thinks there’s the least bit of use in his coming, he may; but—but—he says—he says”—then she hurried on, the words tumbling from her lips in almost unintelligible fashion—“he says he won’t pay out another cent just to be told that rosalind can’t walk, for he knows it already. i don’t think that is a bit polite thing to say; but he did pay a doctor fifty dollars once just for his telling him so, and he wouldn’t let me come at all unless i promised i’d say exactly what he told me to. and i’ve said it!” oscarlucy snapped[203] out the last words with a spirit worthy of her grandfather, and it was with difficulty that polly kept her smile under cover.
when dr. dudley called at the wheatley home polly at his request accompanied him. the doctor heard all that the grandparents had to tell before seeing the little one herself. polly had prepared him for the child’s extraordinary beauty, yet he drew a quick breath when he looked upon the frail, angelic little creature. was there sufficient endurance in that wisp of a frame to outlast the treatment he had in mind?
“i think you are going to cure me,” said the mite, smiling up into his kindly face.
he did not respond in words, only gave her one of his rare smiles that had been the comforting life-buoy for many another little one. he reached out and took the wee wrist in his strong hand. he held it so long that polly began to fear. she watched his face which she knew so well, but it told her nothing.
she followed her father’s brief directions swiftly and with skill. she had learned much since that night when she had first taken charge of paradise ward.
the grandmother, a white-haired, still beautiful woman, watched the little group with eager interest. she was beginning to believe that this calm, self-contained man possessed something which she had seen in none of the other physicians, and she[204] followed his every movement with tense nerves and a quickened heart. when at last the examination was over, and they had returned to the living-room, she quietly awaited the doctor’s verdict, quivering lest it should be what she had heard so many times before.
“are you willing to let your little girl come to the children’s house of joy for two years?” dr. dudley asked.
“you think there is help for her, then?” the grandfather asked.
“i am sure of it. if we can have her for two years, there is almost no doubt of absolute success.”
“why didn’t some of those other fellers say that?” queried mr. wheatley. “they told me there was no use in doing anything except to keep her comfortable.”
“it makes no difference to me what others have said,” replied the doctor. “i know what i know, and i think two years in bed will work wonders.”
“oh, in bed! and if she can’t go?”
“she will be a helpless cripple for the rest of her life—which will be short,” answered the physician quietly.
“you think that?” asked the man.
“i know it,” replied the doctor.
“well, i admit that you act like a man who knows a good deal more than most men. i believe that you are speaking truth; still, i don’t see how[205] we can have her go. i have spent about all my savings now, and—”
“oh, sereno!” his wife burst out. “don’t think of that! we can get along any way, if only she can be made to walk!”
“how much do you charge a week?” asked mr. wheatley.
“we will make the price satisfactory,” the doctor promised. “you may pay only what you can afford to pay.”
“but if it is just to keep her in bed,” broke in the grandmother eagerly, “why can’t she stay at home? i will take care of her—do everything you tell me, same as a nurse.”
dr. dudley gazed into her pleading eyes, as if to read her through and through; but she did not flinch, she met his own steadily.
“i am inclined to think,” he said at last, “that this may be the better plan. there is one strong point in its favor,—the air here is purer than ours.” he smiled back to her. “suppose we take her up on the mountain, where i can keep watch of her as long as i stay, and let her remain there until my daughter is ready to go home. she will have the children for company, and that will be a good thing for her.”
“no, sir!” came in thunderous tones from the man by the table. his big fist came down on his knee as he spoke.
his wife crossed over to him and began to talk[206] in her gentle way, so softly that the others heard but a word now and then. at first the man would have none of her arguments; but presently, with a mollified “have it your own way, then,” he got up and took a seat nearer the doctor.
thus it was settled, but when the details were arranged nobody was present save the two men. grandmother and polly had gone to share the happy news with oscarlucy and rosalind.
the elder girl broke into quiet weeping; but the little one smiled triumphantly.
“i knew he would make me walk!” she said.
