Gypsy Breynton Part 14

"We used to live on a farm on the mountains--father and mother and I.

There were a great many cattle, and so much ground it tired me to walk across it. I always went to school, and father read to us in the evenings.

I suppose that's the way I've learned to love to read, and I've been so glad since. I was pretty small when they died,--first father, then mother.

I remember it a little; at least I remember about mother,--she kissed me so, and cried. Then Aunt Jane came for me, and brought me here. We lived in a pleasant house up the street, at first. I used to work in the mill, and earned enough to pay aunt what I cost her. Then one day, when I was thirteen years old, we were coming out at noon, all of us girls, in a great hurry and frolic, and I felt sick and dizzy watching the wheels go round, and,--well, they didn't mean to,--but they pushed me, and I fell."

"Down stairs?"

"All the way,--it was a long, crooked flight. I struck my spine on every step."

"Oh, Peace!" said Gypsy, half under her breath.

"I was sick for a little while; then I got better. I thought it was all over. Then one day I found a little curve between my shoulders, and so,--well, it came so slowly I hardly knew it, till at last I was in bed with the pain. We had come here because it was hard times, and aunt had to support me,--and then there were the doctor's bills."

"Doesn't he say you can _ever_ get well? never sit up a little while?"

"Oh, no."

Gypsy gasped a little, as if she were suffocating.

"And your aunt,--is she kind to you?"

"Oh, yes."

A certain flitting expression, that the face of Peace caught with the words, Gypsy could not help seeing.

"But I mean, real kind. Does she love you?"

The girl's cheek flushed to a pale, quick crimson, then faded slowly.

"She is very good to me. I am a great trouble. You know I am not her own.

It is very hard for her that I can't support myself."

Gypsy said something just then, in her innermost thought of thoughts, about Aunt Jane, that Aunt Jane would not have cared to hear.

"If I could only earn something!" said Peace, with a quick breath, that sounded like a sigh. "That is hardest of all. But it's all right somehow."

"Peace Maythorne!" said Gypsy, in a little flash, "I don't see! never to go out in the wind and jump on the hay, and climb the mountains, and run and row and s...o...b..ll,--why, it would _kill_ me! And you lie here so sweet and patient, and you haven't said a cross word all the while you've been telling me about it. I don't understand! How can you, _can_ you bear it?"

"I couldn't, if I didn't tell Him," said Peace, softly.

"Whom?"

"G.o.d."

There was a long silence. Gypsy looked out of the window, winking very hard, and Peace lay quite still upon the bed.

"There!" said Gypsy, at last, with a jump. "I shall be late to school."

"Oh," said Peace, "you haven't told me anything about yourself; you said you would."

"Well," said Gypsy, tying on her hat, "that's easy enough done. I'm silly and cross, and forgetful and blundering."

"I don't believe it," said Peace, laughing.

"I am," said Gypsy, confidentially; "it's all true; and I'm always tearing my dresses, and worrying father, and getting mad at Winnie, and bothering Miss Melville, and romping round, and breaking my neck! and then, when things don't go right, how I scold!"

Peace smiled, and looked incredulous.

"It's just so," said Gypsy, giving a little sharp nod to emphasize her words. "And here you lie, and never think of being cross and impatient, and love everybody and everybody loves you, and--well, all I have to say is, if I were you I should have scolded everybody out of the house long before this!"

"You mustn't talk so about me," said Peace, a faint shadow of pain crossing her face. "You don't know how wicked I am--n.o.body knows; I am cross very often. Sometimes when my back aches as if I should scream, and aunt is talking, I hide my face under the clothes, and don't say a word to her."

"You call _that_ being cross!" said Gypsy, with her eyes very wide open.

She b.u.t.toned on her sack, and started to go, but stopped a minute.

"I don't suppose you'd want me to come again--I'm so noisy, and all."

"Oh, I should be so glad!" said Peace, with one of those rare smiles: "I didn't dare to ask you."

"Well; I'll come. But I told you you wouldn't like me."

"I do," said Peace. "I like you very much."

"How funny!" said Gypsy. Then she bade her good-by, and went to school.

"Mother," she said, at night, "did you have any particular reason in sending me to Peace Maythorne?"

"Perhaps so," said Mrs. Breynton, smiling. "Why?"

"Nothing, only I thought so. You were a very wise woman."

A while after she spoke up, suddenly.

"Mother, don't the Quakers say good matches are made in heaven?"

"Who's been putting sentimental ideas into the child's head?" said her father, in an undertone.

"Why, Gypsy Breynton!" said Winnie, looking very much shocked; "you hadn't ought to say such things. Of course, the brimstone falls down from h.e.l.l, and they pick it up and put it on the matches!"

"What made you ask the question?" said Mrs. Breynton, when the laugh had subsided.

"Oh, I was only thinking, I guessed Peace Maythorne's name was made in heaven. It so exactly suits her."

After that, the cripple's little quiet room became one of the places Gypsy loved best in Yorkbury.

Two or three weeks after that Mrs. Littlejohn, who had been gaining rapidly in strength and good temper under Mrs. Breynton's wise and kindly care, took it into her head one morning, when she was alone, to walk across the room, and look out of the window. The weakened limb was not in a fit state to be used at all, and the shock given to it was very great.

Inflammation set in, and fever, and the doctor shook his head, and asked if the old woman had any friends living anywhere; if so, they had better be sent for. But the poor creature seemed to be desolate enough; declared she had no relatives, and was glad of it; she only wanted to be let alone, and she should get well fast enough.

She never said that when Mrs. Breynton was in the room. Gypsy went down one evening with her mother, to help her carry a bundle of fresh bed-clothing, and she was astonished at the gentleness which had crept into the old withered face and peevish voice. Mrs. Littlejohn called her up to the bed, just as she started to go.