Part 21 (2/2)
”What in the world is that child doing, making Billy look like a porcupine?” exclaimed grandma, standing still in amazement, unseen by the two.
”Playing Horned Lady, I should think. But I dare say she has purpose in her mind. Listen. Why, mother! she's actually counting Billy's hair!”
At this moment, Cricket, pausing to snap another elastic band around the last bunch, for the first time noticed the effect of her hair dressing.
”Oh, Billy! if you don't look just as if you had a lot of little feather dusters growing on your head!” she cried, holding on to her sides as she laughed.
Billy looked disturbed. He decidedly objected to being laughed at. He put up his hand to feel.
”Don't take them down,” said Cricket, pus.h.i.+ng his hand away. ”I'm going on. My! what a lot of hair people have. Let's see how many bunches I have. Twenty-two--twenty-three. That makes twenty-three hundred, and there's lots more to do, yet. I don't wonder people mean so much when they say, as many as the hairs of your head, do you?”
”How many, Cricket?” asked auntie, laughing, as she and grandma drew nearer.
”Who's that? Oh, auntie!” Cricket looked a little abashed. ”I'm only counting Billy's hair,” she explained. ”Mr. Clark said this morning that, if we counted our mercies, we should find them as many as the hairs of our heads.”
”It might be easier to count the mercies,” said auntie, still laughing.
”Yes, I thought of that coming home from church,” said Cricket, going on with her work of gathering up wisps of Billy's hair into plumes, and fastening them by the bands, though without counting. ”Then I didn't know exactly what my mercies are, excepting that 'Liza says it is a mercy I'm not twins.”
”What had you been doing when she said that, Jean?” immediately asked grandma, who never used her nickname.
”Nothing, much,” said Cricket, ”only 'Liza gets cranky sometimes, you know.”
”That won't do, Cricket,” said Auntie Jean, scenting mischief. ”Tell me what you did.”
”Really, it wasn't much. It was this morning, and 'Liza had Helen in the bath-tub bathing her, and I went into the nursery a moment, and Zaidee was in bed, and she said her leg hurt her, and 'Liza was going to rub it with 'Pond's Extrap,'--that's what she calls Pond's Extract, you know,”
taking breath,--”and I only meant to help 'Liza, really and truly. So I took down the bottle and began to rub Zaidee's legs. I thought the Pond's Extract seemed to have gotten dreadfully sticky, and it was all thick and dark like mola.s.ses, and I could hardly rub at all with it, and Zaidee said she didn't like it, and she cried. But I thought it was the best thing to do for her, so I told her a story to keep her quiet, till I got both her legs all rubbed. Then 'Liza came in, and wanted to know what made Zaidee's legs so sticky, and the sheets and her nightdress were pretty bad, because she wiggled so that I spilled some. 'Liza just s.n.a.t.c.hed the bottle away, very unpolitely, when I only told her that I had been helping her because she was so busy, and Zaidee wanted her legs rubbed. 'It's Kemp's Balsam,' she said, 'and I'm giving it to Helen for her cough, and it's not Pond's Extract, at all.' But it _was_ a Pond's Extract bottle, auntie, truly, so how should I know? And then she said, 'it was a mercy I wasn't twins,'” finished Cricket, looking much aggrieved.
Auntie laughed till the tears came into her eyes.
”Kemp's Balsam, of all sticky things!” she said. ”Poor Zaidee! did she have to be sc.r.a.ped?”
”'Liza said she guessed she would have to sc.r.a.pe her,” admitted Cricket, reluctantly. ”And the things on the bed, and her nightdress, had to be changed. I kept thinking it was pretty funny looking stuff for Pond's Extract, but I thought perhaps it was rancid.”
”Rancid Pond's Extract! Oh, what a girl!” laughed grandma, but patting her head, consolingly, ”Our little Jean is very nice, but I think I'm glad, myself, you're not twins.”
”There'd be two of us to fall through ceilings, then,” meditated Cricket, ”for I suppose if I was twins we'd be always together like Zaidee and Helen. No, I'm glad there is only one of me. It's more convenient. I don't want to count any more, now, Billy, but would you mind keeping your hair that way for a day or two, so I could count whenever I like?”
And if auntie had not interposed in his behalf, I do not know but Billy might still be walking the streets of Marbury with his crested decoration.
CHAPTER XIII.
A WRESTLING MATCH.
”That's it! Prime! Now, again!” shouted Will, encouragingly, and Cricket, in her blue gymnasium suit, panting and laughing, put her shoulder to Archie's again, and stood in position. Will was giving her a lesson in wrestling, at her particular request, and she was proving an apt pupil, for the slender, elastic little figure and supple muscles made up for any lack of strength.
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