Little Folks Astray Part 14

"Have a free ride, little girl?" shouted Izzy Paul, laughing; for he remembered faces as well as Fly did, and saw at once that it was the same child he had frightened so the day before. But Fly never knew fear where Horace was; she clung to him, and peeped out boldly between her fingers.

When they went "down cellow," as she called it, into Mr. Brooks's house, Aunt Madge was surprised to see how bare it looked. But Dotty Dimple need not have held her skirts so tightly about her, and brushed her elbow so carefully when it hit against the wall; for the house was as clean as hands could make it.

"Mrs. Brooks, I hope you will forgive me for coming down upon you with this little army," said Mrs. Allen, with such a cheery smile that the sick man on the bed felt as if a flood of pure sunshine had burst into the room. He was so tired of lying there, day after day, like a great rag baby, and so glad to see anybody, especially the good lady who, his wife said, was "so easy to talk to!"

"Auntie, look! see the freckled doggie; and there's my flowers, true's you live," cried Flyaway.

"Yes, pa wanted them in a vial, close to his bed; it's the first he's seen this winter," said Maria, stroking Fly as if she had been a kitten.

"You may be sure, little lady, it will be as I said; they'll cure me full as quick as camphire. And, thank the Lord, I can see as well as smell," said Mr. Brooks, with a tender glance at Maria which made Horace feel ashamed of himself. The idea of that poor child's rubbing anything into her eyes? Why, she looked like a wounded bird that had been out in a storm. Her face was really almost beautiful, but so sad that you could not see it without a feeling of pity.

"She looks as if she was walking in her sleep," thought Prudy, and turned away to hide a tear; for somehow there was a chord in her heart that thrilled strangely. That "slow winter" came back to her with a rush, and she was sure she knew how Maria felt.

"She is blind, and I was lame; but it is the same kind of a feeling. O, how I wish I could help her!"

Dotty was as sorry for Maria as she knew how to be, but she could not be as sorry as Prudy was; for she had never had any trouble greater than a sore throat.

"I don't see why the tears don't come into my eyes as easy as they do into Prudy's," thought she, trying to squeeze out a salt drop; "Mrs.

Brooks'll think I don't care a speck; but I do care."

As for wee Fly, she took Maria's blindness to heart about as much as she did the murder of the Hebrew children off in Judea.

"Pitiful 'bout her seeingness; but I wished I had such a beauful dog!"

Aunt Madge was struck with the exalted expression of Maria's face. The child was only thirteen, but suffering had made her look much older.

"My child," said she, putting her arm around the little girl, and drawing her towards her, "I know you see a great deal with your mind, even though your eyes are shut. Now, do tell me all about your misfortune, and how it happened, for I came on purpose to hear."

"Yes, we camed to purpose to hear," said Fly, from the foot-board of the bed, where she had perched and prattled every moment since she came in.

"I founded Maria, and then I went up to her, and says I, 'Doggie, doggie!'"

"That was a pretty way to speak to her, I should think," said Dotty; "but can't you just please to hush while auntie is talking?"

"As near as I can tell the story," said Mrs. Brooks, rattling the poor old coal-stove,--for she always had to be moving something else, as well as her nose, when she talked,--"she lost her sight by studying too hard, and then getting cold in her eyes."

"She was always a master hand to study," put in Mr. Brooks.

Maria looked as if she wanted to run and hide. She did not like to have her father praise her before people.

"Yes," said Mrs. Brooks, setting a chair straight; "and by and by the _leds_ began to draw together, and she couldn't keep 'em open; and there was such a pain in her eyes, too, that I had to be up nights, bathing 'em in all kinds of messes."

"_Don't_ her nose jiggle?" whispered Fly to Horace.

"Of course you took her to a good physician?"

"Well, yes; we thought he was good. We went to three, off and on, but she kept growing worse and worse. It was about the time her father was hurt, and we spent an awful sight on her, till we couldn't spend any more."

"And it was all a cheat and a swindle," exclaimed Mr. Brooks, indignantly. "We'd better have spent the money for a horsewhip, and whipped them doctors with it!"

"Don't, pa, don't! You see, Mrs. Allen, he gets so excited about it he don't know what he says."

"I wonder you did not take her to the City Hospital, Mrs. Brooks. There she could be treated free of expense."

"The fact is, we didn't dare to," replied Mrs. Brooks, taking up an old shoe of Bennie's, and beginning to brush it; "there are folks that have told us it ain't safe; they try experiments on poor folks."

"O, I don't believe you need fear the City Hospital," said Mrs. Allen; "the physicians there are honest men, and among the most skillful in the country."

"But that's our feeling on the subject, ma'am, you see," spoke up Mr.

Brooks, so decidedly, that Aunt Madge saw it was of no use to say any more about it. "We don't want her eyes put out; there are times when she can just see a little glimmer, and we want to save all there is left."

"There are times when she can see? Then there must be hope, Mr. Brooks!

Let me take her to Dr. Blank; he can help her if any one can."

"Well, now, I take it you're joking, Mrs. Allen. That is the very doctor I wanted her to see in the first place; but they do say he'd ask six hundred dollars for looking into her eyes while you'd wink twice."

"You have been misinformed, Mr. Brooks; he never asks anything of people who are unable to pay him. But even if he should in Maria's case, I promise to take the matter into my own hands, and settle the bill myself."

"Mother, do you hear what she says!" cried Mr. Brooks, forgetting himself, and trying to sit up in bed.

But his wife had broken down, and was polishing Bennie's shoe with her tears.

"O, will you take me? Can I go to that doctor?" cried Maria, forgetting her timidity, and turning her sightless eyes towards Mrs. Allen with a joyful look, which seemed to glow through the lids.

"Yes, dear child, I will take you with the greatest pleasure in life; but remember, I don't promise you can be cured. Come with your mother, to-morrow morning, at ten. Will that do, Mrs. Brooks? And now, good by, all. Children, we must certainly be going."

"G.o.d bless her," murmured the sick man, as the little party pa.s.sed out.

"Didn't I tell you she was an angel?" said his wife.

"No, mother; it's that little tot that's the 'angel.' The Lord sent her on ahead to spy out the land; and afterwards there comes a flesh-and-blood woman to see it laid straight."

"Pa thinks that baby is a spirit made out of air," said Maria, laughing in high excitement. "And, mother, don't you really believe now the Lord did send her, just as much as if she dropped down out of the sky?"

"Yes, I hain't a doubt of it, Maria, but what the Lord had us in his mind when he let the child slip off and get lost.--Pa, I'm going to give you some of that blackberry cordial now: you look all gone."

CHAPTER XI.

"THE HEN-HOUSES."

While the Brooks family were talking so gratefully, and Maria counting over the cookies and cups of jelly for the twentieth time, Fly, was holding on to Horace's thumb, saying, as she skipped along,--"I hope the doctor'll take a knife, and pick Maria's eyes open, so she can see."

"Precious little _you_ care whether she can see or not," said Dotty. "I don't think Fly has much feeling,--do you, Prudy?--not like you and I, I mean!"

"Pshaw! what do you expect of such a baby?" said Horace, indignantly.