Part 14 (1/2)
”Doesn't your head ache?” asked Linnet, guiding her steps as her head rested against her mother's breast.
”No.”
”Don't you ache _anywhere?_” questioned her mother, as they led her to the lounge.
”No, ma'am. Why should I? I didn't fall.”
Linnet brought the pillow and comforter, and then ran out through the back yard calling, ”Father! Father!”
Down the road Hollis heard the agonized cry, and turning hastened back to the house.
”Oh, go for the doctor quick!” cried Linnet, catching him by the arm; ”something dreadful has happened to Marjorie, and she doesn't know what it is.”
”Is there a horse in the stable?”
”Oh, no, I forgot. And mother forgot Father has gone to town.”
”I'll get a horse then--somewhere on the road--don't be so frightened.
Dr. Peck will be here in twenty minutes after I find him.”
Linnet flew back to satisfy her mother that the doctor had been sent for, and found Marjorie reiterating to her mother's repeated inquiries:
”I don't ache anywhere; I'm not hurt at all.”
”Where were you, child.”
”I wasn't--anywhere,” she was about to say, then smiled, for she knew she must have been somewhere.
”What happened after you said good-bye to Hollis?” questioned Linnet, falling on her knees beside her little sister, and almost taking her into her arms.
”Nothing.”
”Oh, dear, you're crazy!” sobbed Linnet.
Marjorie smiled faintly and lifted her hand to stroke Linnet's cheeks.
”I won't hurt _you_,” she comforted tenderly.
”I know what I'll do!” exclaimed Mrs. West suddenly and emphatically, ”I can put hot water on that b.u.mp; I've heard that's good.”
Marjorie closed her eyes and lay still; she was tired of talking about something that had not happened at all. She remembered afterward that the doctor came and opened a vein in her arm, and that he kept the blood flowing until she answered ”Yes, sir,” to his question, ”Does your head hurt you _now_?” She remembered all their faces--how Linnet cried and sobbed, how Hollis whispered, ”I'll get a pitcher, Mousie, if I have to go to China for it,” and how her father knelt by the lounge when he came home and learned that it had happened and was all over, how he knelt and thanked G.o.d for giving her back to them all out of her great danger. That night her mother sat by her bedside all night long, and she remembered saying to her:
”If I had been killed, I should have waked up in Heaven without knowing that I had died. It would have been like going to Heaven without dying.”
V.
TWO PROMISES.