Little Prudy's Sister Susy Part 6

"Sometimes I am afraid Prudy is really becoming naughty and deceitful. I thought once it was only her funny way of playing; but she is getting old enough now to know the difference between truth and falsehood."

There was an anxious look on Mrs. Parlin's face. She was a faithful mother, and watched her children's conduct with the tenderest care.

But this lameness of which little Prudy complained, was something more than play; it was a sad truth, as the family learned very soon. Instead of walking properly when her mother bade her do so, the poor child cried bitterly, said it hurt her, and she was so tired she wished they would let her lie on the sofa, and never get up. At times she seemed better; and when everybody thought she was quite well, suddenly the pain and weakness would come again, and she could only limp, or walk by catching hold of chairs.

At last her father called in a physician.

"How long has this child been lame?" said he.

"A month or more."

The doctor looked grave. "Has she ever had an injury, Mr. Parlin, such as slipping on the ice, or falling down stairs?"

"No, sir," replied Mr. Parlin, "I believe not."

"Not a serious injury that I know of," said Mrs. Parlin, pa.s.sing her hand across her forehead, and trying to remember. "No, I think Prudy has never had a _bad_ fall, though she is always meeting with slight accidents."

"O, mamma," said Susy, who had begged to stay in the room, "she did have a fall: don't you know, Christmas day, ever so long ago, how she went rolling down stairs with her little chair in her arms, and woke everybody up?"

The doctor caught at Susy's words.

"With her little chair in her arms, my dear? And did she cry as if she was hurt?"

"Yes, sir; she said the _p.r.o.ngs_ of the chair stuck into her side."

"It hurt me dreffully," said Prudy, who had until now forgotten all about it. "Susy spoke so quick, and said I was a little snail; and then I rolled over and over, and down I went."

The doctor almost smiled at these words, lisped out in such a plaintive voice, as if Prudy could not think of that fall even now, without pitying herself very much.

"Just let me see you stand up, little daughter," said he; for Prudy was lying on the sofa.

But it hurt her to bear her weight on her feet.

She said, "One foot, the '_lame-knee-foot_,' came down so long, it _more_ than touched the floor."

The doctor looked sober. The foot did drag indeed. The trouble was not in her knee, but in her hip, which had really been injured when she fell down stairs, and the "p.r.o.ngs" of the chair were forced against it.

It seemed to Mrs. Parlin strange that Prudy had never complained of any pain in her side; but the doctor said it was very common for people to suffer from hip-disease, and seem to have only a lame knee.

"Hip-disease!" When Mrs. Parlin heard these words, she grew so dizzy, that it was all she could do to keep from fainting. It came over her in a moment, the thought of what her little daughter would have to suffer--days and nights of pain, and perhaps a whole lifetime of lameness. She had often heard of hip-disease, and was aware that it is a very serious thing.

Do you know, she would gladly have changed places with Prudy, would gladly have borne all the child must suffer, if by that means she could have saved her? This is the feeling which mothers have when any trouble comes upon their children; but the little ones, with their simple minds, cannot understand it.

CHAPTER VI.

ROSY FRANCES EASTMAN MARY.

Prudy had enjoyed a great many rides in Susy's beautiful sleigh; but now the doctor forbade her going out, except for very short distances, and even then, he said, she must sit in her mother's lap. He wanted her to lie down nearly all the time, and keep very quiet.

At first, Mrs. Parlin wondered how it would be possible to keep such a restless child quiet; but she found, as time pa.s.sed, and the disease made progress, that poor little Prudy was only too glad to lie still.

Every motion seemed to hurt her, and sometimes she cried if any one even jarred the sofa suddenly.

These were dark days for everybody in the house. Susy, who was thoughtful beyond her years, suffered terribly from anxiety about her little sister. More than that, she suffered from remorse.

"O, grandma Read," said she one evening, as she sat looking up at the solemn, shining stars, with overflowing eyes--"O, grandma!" The words came from the depths of a troubled heart. "I may live to be real old; but I never shall be happy again! I can't, for, if it hadn't been for me? Prudy would be running round the house as well as ever!"

Mrs. Read had a gentle, soothing voice. She could comfort Susy when anybody could. Now she tried to set her heart at rest by saying that the doctor gave a great deal of hope. He could not promise a certain cure, but he felt great faith in a new kind of splint which he was using for Prudy's hip.

"O, grandma, it may be, and then, again, it may not be," sobbed poor Susy; "we can't tell what G.o.d will think best; but anyhow, it was I that did it."

"But, Susan, thee must think how innocent thee was of any wrong motive.

Thee did not get angry, and push thy little sister, thee knows thee didn't, Susan! Thee was only in a hurry, and rather thoughtless. The best of us often do very foolish things, and cause much mischief; but thee'll find it isn't best to grieve over these mistakes. Why, my dear little Susan, I have lived eight years to thy one, and if I should sit down now and drop a tear for every blunder I have made, I don't know but I could almost make a fountain of myself, like that woman thee tells about in the fairy story."

"The fountain of Pirene that Pegasus loved," said Susy; "that was the name of it. Why, grandma, I never should have thought of your saying such a queer thing as that! Why, it seems as if you always did just right, and thought it all over before you did it. Do _you_ ever do wrong? How funny!"

Mrs. Read smiled sadly. She was not an angel yet; so I suppose she did wrong once in a while.

"Now, grandma, I want to ask you one question, real sober and honest.

You know it was so dark that morning in the middle of the night, when we were going down the back stairs? Now, if I'd made a great deal worse mistake than calling Prudy a snail,--if I'd pushed her real hard, and she had fallen faster,--O, I can't bear to think! I mean, if the chair-p.r.o.ngs had hit her head, grandma--and--killed her! What would they have done to _me_? I thought about it last night, so I couldn't go to sleep for the longest while! I heard the clock _strike_ once while I was awake there in bed! Would they have put me in the lock-up, grandma, and then hung me for murder?"

"My dear child, no, indeed! How came such horrible ideas in thy tender little brain? It is too dreadful to think about; but, even if thy little sister _had_ died, Susan, thee would have been no more to blame than thee is now, and a great, great deal more to be pitied."

Susy sat for a long while gazing out of the window; but the stars did not wink so solemnly; the moon looked friendly once more. Susy was drinking in her grandmother's words of comfort. The look of sadness was disappearing from the young face, and smiles began to play about the corners of her mouth.

"Well," said she, starting up briskly, "I'm glad I wasn't so very terribly wicked! I wish I'd been somewhere else, when I stood on those back-stairs, in the middle of the night; but what's the use? I'm not going to think any more about it, grandma; for if I should think till my head was all twisted up in a knot, what good would it do? It wouldn't help Prudy any; would it, grandma?"

"No, dear," said the mild, soothing voice again; "don't think, I beg of thee; but if thee wants to know what would do Prudence good, I will tell thee: try thy best to amuse her. She has to lie day after day and suffer. It is very hard for a little girl that loves to play, and can't read, and doesn't know how to pa.s.s the time; don't thee think so, Susan?"

It was certainly hard. Prudy's round rosy face began to grow pale; and, instead of laughing and singing half the time, she would now lie and cry from pain, or because she really did not know what else to do with herself.

It was worst at night. Hour after hour, she would lie awake, and listen to the ticking of the clock. Susy thought it a pitiable case, when _she_, heard the clock strike _once_; but little Prudy heard it strike again and again. How strangely it pounded out the strokes in the night!

What a dreary sound it was, pealing through the silence! The echoes answered with a shudder. Then, when Prudy had counted one, two, three, four, and the clock had no more to say at that time, it began to tick again: "Prudy's sick! Prudy's sick! O, dear me! O, dear me!"

Prudy could hardly believe it was the same clock she saw in the daytime.

She wondered if it felt lonesome in the night, and had the blues; or what _could_ ail it! The poor little girl wanted somebody to speak to in these long, long hours. She did not sleep with Susy, but in a new cot-bed of her own, in aunt Madge's room; for, dearly as she loved to lie close to any one she loved, she begged now to sleep alone, "so n.o.body could hit her, or move her, or joggle her."

It was a great comfort to have aunt Madge so near. If it had been Susy instead, Prudy would have had no company but the sound of her breathing.

It was of no use to try to wake Susy in the dead of night. p.r.i.c.king her with pins would startle her, but she never knew anything even after she was startled. All she could do was to stare about her, cry, and act very cross, and then--go to sleep again.

But with aunt Madge it was quite different. She slept like a cat, with one eye open. Perhaps the reason she did not sleep more soundly, was, that she felt a care of little Prudy. No matter when Prudy spoke to her, aunt Madge always answered. She did not say, "O, dear, you've startled me out of a delicious nap!" She said, "Well, darling, what do you want?"

Prudy generally wanted to know when it would be morning? When would the steamboat whistle? What made it stay dark so long? She wanted a drink of water, and _always_ wanted a story.

If aunt Madge had forgotten to provide a gla.s.s of water, she put on her slippers, lighted the little handled lamp, and stole softly down stairs to the pail, which Norah always pumped full of well-water the last thing in the evening.

Or, if Prudy fancied it would console her to have a peep at her beautiful doll which "would be alive if it could speak," why, down stairs went auntie again to search out the spot where Susy had probably left it when "she took it to show to some children."