Carolyn of the Corners Part 30

Uncle Joe and Aunty Rose loved her and were kind to her. But that feeling of "emptiness" that had at first so troubled Carolyn May was returning. Kind as her new friends here at The Corners and at Sunrise Cove were, there was something lacking in the little girl's life.

Nothing could make up to her for the jolly companions.h.i.+p of her father.

Even while his health was declining, he had made all about him happier by his own cheerful spirit. And the little girl longed, more and more, for her mother. She had followed her father's axiom to "look up" and had benefited by it; but, at last, her loneliness and homesickness had become, it seemed, too great to endure.

She began to droop. Keen-eyed Aunty Rose discovered this physical change very quickly.

"She's just like a droopy chicken," declared the good woman, "and, goodness knows, I have seen enough of them."

So, as a stimulant and a preventive of "droopiness," Aunty Rose prescribed boneset tea, "plenty of it." Now, she loved Carolyn May very much, even if she could not bring herself to the point of showing her affection before others; but boneset tea is an awful dose!

Carolyn May took the prescribed quant.i.ty and shook all over. She could not bear the taste of bitter things, and this boneset, or thoroughwort, had the very bitterest taste she had ever encountered.

"Do-do you think it's good for me, Aunty Rose?" she asked quaveringly.

"It certainly is, Carolyn May."

"Well-_but_," returned the little girl, "wouldn't something else do me good-only, maybe, slower-that wasn't so awfully bitter? I-I'm afraid I'll never learn to like this boneset tea-not really, Aunty Rose."

"We are not supposed to like medicine," declared Aunty Rose, being a confirmed allopath.

"Oh, aren't we?" the little girl cried. "I 'member being sick once-at home, with my mamma and papa-and a doctor came. A real nice doctor, with eyegla.s.ses. And he gave me cunning little pills of different colours. I didn't mind taking them; they were like candy."

Aunty Rose shook her head decidedly and negatively.

"I do not believe in such remedies," she said. "Medicine is like punishment-unless it hurts, of what use is it?"

Therefore three times a day Carolyn May was dosed with boneset tea. How long the child's stomach would have endured under this treatment will never be known. Carolyn May got no better, that was sure; but one day something happened.

Winter had moved on in its usual frosty and snowy way. Carolyn May had kept up all her interests-after a fas.h.i.+on. She went to school, and she visited Miss Amanda, and her sailor man held her attention. But they were just surface interests. "Inside" she was all sick, and sorry, and p.r.o.ne to tears; and it was not altogether the boneset tea that made her feel so unsettled, either.

Benjamin Hardy had gone to Adams' camp to work. It seemed he could use a peavy, or canthook, pretty well, having done something besides sailing in his day. Tim, the hackman, worked at logging in the winter months, too. He usually went past the Stagg place with a team four times each day.

There was something Carolyn May wished to ask Benjamin Hardy, but she did not want anybody else to know what it was-not even Uncle Joe or Aunty Rose. Miss Amanda had gone across town to stay with a lady who was ill, so the little girl could not take her into her confidence, had she so wished.

Anyway, it was the seaman Carolyn May wished to talk with, and she laid her plans accordingly. Once in the fall and before the snow came she had ridden as far as Adams' camp with Mr. Parlow. He had gone there for some hickory wood.

But, now, to ride on the empty sled going in and on top of the load of logs coming out of the forest, Carolyn May felt sure, would be much more exciting. She mentioned her desire to Uncle Joe on a Friday evening.

"Well, now, if it's pleasant, I don't see anything to forbid. Do you, Aunty Rose?" Mr. Stagg returned.

"I presume Tim will take the best of care of her," the woman said.

"Maybe getting out more in the air will make her look less peaked, Joseph Stagg."

The hardware dealer stared at his little niece with knitted brow.

"Does she look peaked, Aunty Rose?" he asked anxiously.

"She doesn't look as robust as I could wish."

"Say! she isn't sick, is she? You don't feel bad, do you, Car'lyn May?"

"Oh, no, Uncle Joe," the child hastened to say, remembering vividly the boneset tea. "I'm quite sure I'm not ill."

The excitement of preparing to go to the camp the next morning brought the roses into Carolyn May's cheeks and made her eyes sparkle. When Tim, the hackman, went into town with his first load he was forewarned by Aunty Rose that he would have company going back.

"Pitcher of George Was.h.i.+ngton!" exclaimed Tim. "The boys will near 'bout take a holiday. You tell her to put on her red hood and a blue hair-ribbon, and she'll be as purty as a posy to go a-visiting."

"Never mind what she wears, Timothy," said Aunty Rose sternly. "You see that she gets back here safely."

"Surest thing you know, Miz Kennedy," agreed the man.

Carolyn May-and, of course, Prince-were ready when Tim came back with the empty sled, or "jumper," as he called it. He had thrown a number of sacks upon it, on which she might sit, and they started off briskly. The bells on the horses' collars jingled a merry tune.

Prince bounded about the sled in wild delight, barking madly. Such an adventure as this was quite to his liking.

"I vow!" croaked Timothy, "I've often thought I'd like to be a dog-some men's dog, I mean. They ain't got nothin' to trouble 'em-'nless it's a few fleas. And maybe _they_ ain't such a heavy cross and burden. They give the dog good healthy exercise a-scratchin' of 'em.

"Now, look at that Prince critter, will you? He's all of a broad grin-happy as a clam at high water. He don't hafter worry about rent, or clo'es, or how to meet the next payment on the pianner. He sure is in an easy state of mind."

"Yes," Carolyn May agreed, "I think Prince is a very cheerful dog. Why, he almost laughs sometimes!"

"I reckon he does," agreed Tim. "Only, dumb critters don't never really laff."

"Oh, yes, they do!" cried Carolyn May, eager to give information when she could. "Anyhow, _some_ animals do."

"Pitcher of George Was.h.i.+ngton!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the man. "What animals, I'd be proud ter know?"

"Why, there were some of them at the Zoo. That's 'way up in the Bronx, you know."

"What's the Brow-n-x?" interrupted Tim as they jounced along.

"Why-why, it's a park. Bigger'n Central Park, you know-oh! ever so much bigger. And they have lots of animals-wild animals."

"Not _loose_?" cried her listener.

"Oh, no. That is, not all of them. Some are in big fields, or yards; but there are fences up."

"Yep, I sh'd hope so," returned Tim. "And, if I was goin' to visit 'em, I sh'd want them fences to be horse high, hog tight, and bull strong. I sure would!"

"Well, but the laughing hyenas are in cages," explained Carolyn May.

"Do tell! An' do they laff? They must be good-natured critters, after all, them-what d'ye call 'em-laffin' hannahs?"

"Hy-_e_-nas," repeated Carolyn May carefully. "They look something like dogs-only they aren't. And they look something like zebras-only they aren't. And when they do laugh, Mr. Tim, it just makes the cold chills run up and down your back. Oh, they are dreadful ugly beasts! So laughing don't always make things good-natured, does it?"

"Pitcher of George Was.h.i.+ngton!" murmured Tim, the hackman, staring at her wide-eyed. "What a 'magination that young one's got!"

But the little girl did not hear this comment, else she would have been unhappy.