At the Little Brown House Part 24

"Nurse?" She looked at him with wide-open eyes, secretly wondering whether he knew what he was talking about.

"Yes, ma'am, nurse!" he thundered. "Annette Fisher is sick, very sick, and I have told her mother time after time that she must not be left alone, yet in spite of all my cautions, that red-headed ignoramus has taken the rest of the caboodle and gone off to town, leaving Annette all alone in the house until the father gets home tonight. The child's fever has been soaring sky-high for days, and I was just beginning to think I had it in control and could pull her through when that old termagant-gossip of a mother, who doesn't deserve to have chick or child, hikes off to spend the afternoon with relatives in the city for a chance to look up bargains at The Martindale. What are embroideries and dress goods compared with the life of a child? Won't she get a piece of my mind the next time I lay eyes on her?" So angry and indignant was the old doctor that he had wholly forgotten himself, and spoke as he would never have thought of doing under different circ.u.mstances.

Peace brought him to the earth by agreeing heartily, "Well, I would 'f I was you, and I'd give her a good big piece, too. I'll nurse Annette if you want me to. Shall I give her a bath and dose her with medicine every few minutes, like we did mother? Does she need to be wrapped up in wet rags or painted with _irondye_? Or do you want me to feed her _grool_ and broth?"

"You don't have to do a single thing but stay with her and keep her from fretting until I can get someone from the village to go down there.

I gave her a bath just now myself, and she has taken her medicine--all I want her to have for the present. She isn't to eat a thing, but she can drink all the milk she wants, and occasionally have a little water if she asks for it. Now remember, Peace. She is too sick to pay attention to much of anything, but sometimes she is fretful and talks a good deal.

Try to be as quiet as possible yourself,--don't say things to excite her--don't speak at all unless she wants you to. Do you understand?"

"Yes."

"I'll send someone down to relieve you the minute I can get anyone.

Hurry along now, and don't forget what I have said."

"All right," was the cheery response; and Peace, with a curious thrill of awe in her heart, sped down the hill as fast as her nimble feet could carry her.

The door of the Fisher house stood open, so, without knocking to make her presence known, she stepped softly inside the hall, and crept up the stairs to the little, hot chamber, where thin-faced Annette lay burning with fever. The invalid was awake, tossing fretfully among her pillows, but the instant she saw Peace in the doorway her eyes brightened, and she called in a shrill, weak voice, "Is it really you, Peace, or has my head turned 'round again?"

"It's really me. Dr. Bainbridge sent me up."

"That's funny. He wouldn't let you or any of the other girls come when I asked for you before. Did you bring all those flowers for me?"

"Yes," Peace answered readily, glancing down at the huge bouquet in her arms, which she had entirely forgotten. "Where shall I put them? No, don't try to tell me; I'll find a dish myself."

"Would you please bring me a drink, too?" Annette asked hesitatingly.

"Sure!"

"Fresh from the well?"

"Yes."

Peace disappeared down the creaking stairs again, returning quickly with a dripping dipper full of sparkling, ice-cold water from the well, and the sick child drank feverishly, sighing as she relinquished the cup, "That's awful good. If only it would stay cold all the time! But the next time I want a drink it is warm and horrid, and ma says she can't be always chasing to the well just to get me some water. Harry won't, either. Pa ain't here but a little while night and morning, and Isabel is too little to fetch it. Set the flowers here on the chair where I can see them good. When ma comes home she'll likely throw them out. She says she can't see the good of cluttering up the house with dishes of weeds like that."

"Your mother is an old _turnacrank_,--Doctor says so," muttered Peace indignantly, as she tugged at the heavy jar of foxgloves she had arranged with artistic care.

"What did you say?" asked Annette, querulously.

Peace suddenly remembered the doctor's instructions. "I say I know how to keep water cold. Gail used to do it for mother on hot days. I'll wet a rag and wrap the dipper in that and set it in the window where the wind will blow on it."

"Will that make it keep cool?"

"Yes, as long as the rag is wet. There is quite a little wind today, too, and that helps."

"Is it cool out-doors?"

"Yes."

"Oh, dear! I wish I could go out under the trees. It is so hot in here cooped up like I am."

Peace bit her tongue. How easy it was to forget the doctor's directions!

Twice already she had said things which excited the poor, sick prisoner, whom she had been told to keep quiet. A happy inspiration leaped into her thought, and moving the jar of delicate blossoms closer to the bed, she slipped a spray into Annette's hand, saying, "S'pose we _minagine_ these flowers are trees. They would make a lovely forest, wouldn't they?

I often wish the trees had pretty flowers."

"Apple trees have," said Annette thoughtfully.

"That's so!" was the surprised e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n. "I forgot all about the fruit trees. All of them have flowers, but I like the apple-blossoms best, don't you?"

"Yes, they are so cool looking and so sweet and smelly."

"That's what I like about them most. When I go to the moon I wear a dress made of apple-blossoms and--"

"When you go to the moon?" repeated Annette, looking bewildered and wondering if the queer thoughts which the doctor called delirium were coming back to haunt her again.

"Oh, of course, I really don't go, but I like to s'pose what it would be like if I could go there. After Allee and me go to bed at night, sometimes the moon comes and s.h.i.+nes in at our window and we talk to it.

I don't care about the man-in-the-moon very much, though Allee likes him. She says he must be so lonely up there by himself all the time that she doesn't see how he can keep on smiling so. But I love the lady in the moon."

"The lady in the moon?"

"Well, we call her the moon lady. We like to think she is a beautiful, beau-ti-ful lady, with long, pale yellow hair that pretty nearly drags when she walks. It would drag if she didn't wear such big tails on her skirts. That's the kind of hair I wish I had instead of kinky, woolly curls. Hers isn't a bit curly, but just falls back from her face like Jennie Munn's after she has had it braided for a long time. And it trails out behind her like a--a cloud. Her dress is white stuff, and she never has it starched; it's just soft and s.h.i.+ny and swishy, and seems to b'long just to her. Oh, she is the prettiest lady, Annette!"

"What color are her eyes?" asked the invalid, much interested in the picture Peace was drawing.

"Blue, just like Hope's, only you don't think of them being blue when you look at the moon lady--they 'mind you of stars. I think they are stars, and she wears a star in her hair."

"Does she have a house to live in?"

"Not a house, but a palace, made of soft-looking, sparkly stones that flash like diamond dust, and inside it is white and still,--the kind of a still that makes you feel dreamy and nice. And there are fountains everywhere, with cool water splas.h.i.+ng out of the top of them. They are made of white marble--the fountains are, I mean--and so are the _pillows_ of the palace on the outside, where the moon lady walks in her garden."

"Is there a garden in the moon?"

"In my moon there is, and--"

"Ma says the moon is made of green cheese, and is full of maggots."

"I heard that story, too, and I look for them first thing every time I go there, but I haven't found any yet. Big, white Easter lilies grow along the paths, and lilies-of-the-valley blossom the whole year round, and water lilies make the lake almost white sometimes."

"Oh, a lake, too! How nice!"

"The moon lady's lake is the prettiest I ever saw. The water is always silv'ry, just like our lakes look when the moon s.h.i.+nes down on them. You know, Annette, don't you?"

"Yes, the moon was s.h.i.+ning one time when I went to Lake Marion with pa to hear the band, and we rowed around in a little boat and listened to the music."

"That's just what the moon lady does when we go to see her, only her boats are green-pea pods, and the sails are apple-blossom petals. We don't have to row; the boats just float of themselves, and we pick water lilies or listen to the music--"

"What kind of music?"

"Oh, sometimes the moon lady sings by-low songs, and sometimes it's just the frogs singing in the bottom of the lake."