Part 28 (1/2)

When they were through, Patsey began to pile up the dishes and carry them to the sink. He often did this for Dil, and none of the boys dared chaff him. She rose presently.

The room, the very chair on which she rested her hand, seemed slipping away. All the air was full of feathery blue clouds. There was a curious rus.h.i.+ng sound, a great light, a great darkness, and Dil was a little heap on the floor, white as any ghost.

Patsey picked her up in his arms, and screamed as only a boy can scream,-

”Run quick for some one. Dil's dead!”

XIII-THE LAND OF PURE DELIGHT

Owen started out of the door in a great fright. Mrs. Wilson was strolling in her yard, and the boy called to her. There was a side gate that led out in the alley-way. She came through quickly, although she had held very much aloof from these undesirable neighbors.

They had laid Dil on the lounge, stuffed anew and covered with bright cretonne. Patsey looked at her, wild-eyed.

”I think she has only fainted. My sister faints frequently.” She began to chafe Dil's hands, and asked them to wet the end of the towel, with which she bathed the small white face, and the brown eyes opened with a smile, a little startled at the stranger bending over her. She closed them again; and Mrs. Wilson nodded to the intensely eager faces crowding about, saying a.s.suringly,-

”She will be all right presently.”

Then she glanced around the room. It was clean, and it had some pretty ”gift pictures” tacked up on the whitewashed wall. There was a bowl of flowers on the window-sill. The table had a red and white cloth, there were some Chinese napkins, and cheap but pretty dishes. The long towel hanging by the sink was fairly sweet in its cleanliness, and this pale little girl was the housekeeper!

”Have you ever fainted before? What had you been doing?” she asked in a quiet manner.

”We'd been up to Cent'l Park. It was so beautiful! But I guess I got tired out,” and Dil smiled faintly. ”You see, I was in the hospital in the spring, an' I ain't so strong's I used to be. But I feel all well now.”

”Youse jes' lay still there, 'n' Owny, 'n' me'll wash up the dishes.”

Patsey colored scarlet as he said this, but he stood his ground manfully.

”They're so good to me!” and Dil looked up into her visitor's eyes with such heartsome grat.i.tude that the lady was deeply touched. ”Patsey,” she added, ”you've got on your best clo'es, 'n' I wish you'd tie on that big apern. Mrs. Wilson won't make fun, I know.”

”No, my child; I shall honor him for his carefulness,” returned Mrs.

Wilson.

Patsey's face grew redder, if such a thing was possible, but he tied on the ap.r.o.n.

”I ought to have been more neighborly,” began Mrs. Wilson, with a twinge of conscience. ”I've watched you all so long, and you have all improved so much since old Mrs. Brown was here! But everybody seems so engrossed with business!”

”That's along o' Dil,” put in Patsey proudly. ”When Dil come things was diff'rent. Dil's got so many nice ways-she allis had.”

”Is your mother dead?”

Dil's face was full of scarlet shame and distress, but she could not tell a wrong story.

”Her mother ain't no good,” declared Patsey, in his stout champions.h.i.+p; for he did not quite like to tell a lie, himself, to the lady, and he knew Dil wouldn't. ”But Dil's splendid; and Owny, that's her brother,”

nodding toward him, ”is fus' rate. We're keepin' together; an' little Dan, he's in a home bein' took keer of.”

”O Patsey!” Dil flushed with a kind of shamefaced pleasure at his praise.

”So you be! I ain't goin' back on you, never.” And there was a little gruffness in his voice as is apt to be the case when a lump rises in a big boy's throat. ”An' you couldn't tell how nice she's fixed up the place-'twas jes' terrible when she come.”