Part 14 (2/2)
”And so I bought the tickets and we got home,” she ended, adding, ”Oh, Uncle Henry, you ought to have seen the prize pig! He was TOO funny!”
They turned into the Putney yard now and saw Aunt Abigail's bulky form on the porch.
”Got 'em, Abby! All right! No harm done!” shouted Uncle Henry.
Aunt Abigail turned without a word and went back into the house. When the little girls dragged their weary legs in they found her quietly setting out some supper for them on the table, but she was wiping away with her ap.r.o.n the joyful tears which ran down her cheeks, such white cheeks! It seemed so strange to see rosy Aunt Abigail with a face like paper.
”Well, I'm glad to see ye,” she told them soberly. ”Sit right down and have some hot milk. I had some all ready.”
The telephone rang, she went into the next room, and they heard her saying, in an unsteady voice: ”All right, Ann. They're here. Your father just brought them in. I haven't had time to hear about what happened yet. But they're all right. You'd better come home.”
”That's your Cousin Ann telephoning from the Marshalls'.”
She herself went and sat down heavily, and when Uncle Henry came in a few minutes later she asked him in a rather weak voice for the ammonia bottle. He rushed for it, got her a fan and a drink of cold water, and hung over her anxiously till the color began to come back into her pale face. ”I know just how you feel, Mother,” he said sympathetically. ”When I saw 'em standin' there by the roadside I felt as though somebody had hit me a clip right in the pit of the stomach.”
The little girls ate their supper in a tired daze, not paying any attention to what the grown-ups were saying, until rapid hoofs clicked on the stones outside and Cousin Ann came in quickly, her black eyes snapping.
”Now, for mercy's sake, tell me what happened,” she said, adding hotly, ”and if I don't give that Maria Wendell a piece of my mind!”
Uncle Henry broke in: ”_I_'M going to tell what happened. I WANT to do it. You and Mother just listen, just sit right down and listen.” His voice was shaking with feeling, and as he went on and told of Betsy's afternoon, her fright, her confusion, her forming the plan of coming home on the train and of earning the money for the tickets, he made, for once, no Putney pretense of casual coolness. His old eyes flashed fire as he talked.
Betsy, watching him, felt her heart swell and beat fast in incredulous joy. Why, he was proud of her! She had done something to make the Putney cousins proud of her!
When Uncle Henry came to the part where she went on asking for employment after one and then another refusal, Cousin Ann reached out her long arms and quickly, almost roughly, gathered Betsy up on her lap, holding her close as she listened. Betsy had never before sat on Cousin Ann's lap.
And when Uncle Henry finished--he had not forgotten a single thing Betsy had told him--and asked, ”What do you think of THAT for a little girl ten years old today?” Cousin Ann opened the flood-gates wide and burst out, ”I think I never heard of a child's doing a smarter, grittier thing ... AND I DON'T CARE IF SHE DOES HEAR ME SAY SO!”
It was a great, a momentous, an historic moment!
Betsy, enthroned on those strong knees, wondered if any little girl had ever had such a beautiful birthday.
CHAPTER XI
”UNDERSTOOD AUNT FRANCES”
About a month, after Betsy's birthday, one October day when the leaves were all red and yellow, two very momentous events occurred, and, in a manner of speaking, at the very same time. Betsy had noticed that her kitten Eleanor (she still thought of her as a kitten, although she was now a big, grown-up cat) spent very little time around the house. She came into the kitchen two or three times a day, mewing loudly for milk and food, but after eating very fast she always disappeared at once.
Betsy missed the purring, contented ball of fur on her lap in the long evenings as she played checkers, or read aloud, or sewed, or played guessing games. She felt rather hurt, too, that Eleanor paid her so little attention, and several times she tried hard to make her stay, trailing in front of her a spool tied to a string or rolling a worsted ball across the floor. But Eleanor seemed to have lost all her taste for the things she had liked so much. Invariably, the moment the door was opened, she darted out and vanished.
One afternoon Betsy ran out after her, determined to catch her and bring her back. When the cat found she was being followed, she bounded along in great leaps, constantly escaping from Betsy's outstretched hand. They came thus to the horse-barn, into the open door of which Eleanor whisked like a little gray shadow, Betsy close behind. The cat flashed up the steep, ladder-like stairs that led to the hay-loft. Betsy scrambled rapidly up, too. It was dark up there, compared to the gorgeous-colored October day outside, and for a moment she could not see Eleanor. Then she made her out, a dim little shape, picking her way over the hay, and she heard her talking. Yes, it was real talk, quite, quite different from the loud, imperious ”MIAUW!” with which Eleanor asked for her milk.
This was the softest, prettiest kind of conversation, all little murmurs and chirps and sing-songs. Why, Betsy could almost understand it! She COULD understand it enough to know that it was love-talk, and then, breaking into this, came a sudden series of shrill, little, needle-like cries that fairly filled the hay-loft. Eleanor gave a bound forward and disappeared. Betsy, very much excited, scrambled and climbed up over the hay as fast as she could go.
It was all silent now--the piercing, funny little squalls had stopped as suddenly as they began. On the top in a little nest lay Eleanor, purring so loudly you could hear her all over the big mow, and so proud and happy she could hardly contain herself. Her eyes glistened, she arched her back, rolled over and spread out her paws, disclosing to Betsy's astounded, delighted eyes--no, she wasn't dreaming--two dear little kittens, one all gray, just like its mother; one gray with a big bib on his chest.
Oh! How dear they were! How darling, and cuddly, and fuzzy! Betsy put her fingers very softly on the gray one's head and thrilled to feel the warmth of the little living creature. ”Oh, Eleanor!” she asked eagerly.
”CAN I pick one up?” She lifted the gray one gently and held it up to her cheek. The little thing nestled down in the warm hollow of her hand.
She could feel its tiny, tiny little claws p.r.i.c.king softly into her palm. ”Oh, you sweetness! You little, little baby-thing!” she said over and over in a whisper.
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