The Little Colonel's House Party Part 13

"Well, I'll send for Doctor Fuller immediately. If it proves to be the measles, we will turn the house into a hospital at once. If the old saying is true that misery loves company, then you ought to be a contented quartette."

"Oh, I've already had the measles," said Betty, quickly, "two years ago."

"Then I'm glad that you will not have to suffer for the disobedience of the others," answered her G.o.dmother. "It has brought its own punishment this time, so I'll not add a scolding. I'll leave the measles, if that's what it turns out to be, to preach you a sermon on the text, 'Be sure your sin will find you out.'"

Sally Fairfax welcomed no guests from Locust that night at her party, for the doctor made his visit and p.r.o.nounced his verdict. No parties for many a long day. Lloyd and Eugenia and Joyce had the measles, and n.o.body would want Betty to come for fear of the contagion.

Mrs. Sherman and Eliot and Mom Beck went from one darkened room to another with hot lemonade, and Betty was left to roam about the place by herself. Once she slipped into the sewing-room where the tissue-paper costumes were laid out in readiness beside the dainty little flower-shaped hats. Joyce's was patterned after a pale blue morning-glory, and Eugenia's a scarlet poppy. Lloyd's looked like a pink hyacinth, and Betty's a daffodil.

"It's too bad," mourned Betty, tilting the graceful daffodil blossom of a hat on her brown curls, and admiring it in the mirror. "_I_ haven't got the measles, and this is so sweet, it's a pity not to wear it somewhere."

Late that evening she heard the Little Colonel grumbling: "Well, this is a house pahty suah enough, I must say! Heah we are in the house, and heah we'll stay and miss all the fun. I don't like this kind of a house pahty!"

"Nevah mine, honey," said Mom Beck. "It'll not be as bad as you think.

The measles is done broke out on you beautiful--as thick as hops."

"But I hate this dahk room," wailed the Little Colonel, "and it's so poky and tiahsome, and I am so hot and I ache all ovah--"

Then Betty heard Mrs. Sherman go into the room, and the fretting ceased as her cool hand stroked the hot little forehead, and her voice began a slumber song. It was the "White Seal's Lullaby."

"'Oh, hush thee my baby, the night is behind us, And black are the waters that sparkled so green.'"

How often she had read it in her "Jungle Book," but she had no idea how beautiful it was until she heard it as her G.o.dmother was singing it.

There was the slow, restful, swinging motion of the waves in that music; the coolness of the deep green seas. How quickly it took away the fever and the aching, and left the healing of sleep in its wake!

"'Where billow meets billow, there soft be thy pillow.

Oh, weary wee flipperling, curl at thy ease!

The storm shall not wake thee, nor shark overtake thee, Asleep in the arms of the slow swinging seas.'"

Betty, in her room across the hall, leaned her head against the window-sill and looked out into the darkness. There were tears in her eyes. "Oh," she whispered, with a quivering lip, "if I only had a mother to sing to me like that, I wouldn't mind having the measles or anything else!"

The worst was over in a few days, and then two cots were carried into Eugenia's room for Lloyd and Joyce to occupy during the day. The windows still had to be kept darkened, but the girls managed to find a great deal to amuse themselves with. They would not have fared so well had it not been for Betty. Many an hour she spent in the dim room, when the summer was calling to her on every breeze to come out in its sunshine and be glad in its cheer. Many a game of checkers she played with the exacting invalids, when she longed to be riding over the country on Lad. And she read aloud by the single ray of light admitted through the shutters, and told stories until her voice was husky.

"It's fun, isn't it?" said Eugenia, one day when they were waiting for their lunch to be brought up. "I am always wondering what is coming next, for Cousin Elizabeth has never missed a day, sending up some surprise with our meals. It is a continual surprise-party."

"We'll be dreadfully spoiled," said Joyce, "like a little boy at home that I know. He insists on keeping Christmas the year around. As he is the only child, and they'd give him the moon if they could reach it, they let him hang up his stocking every night, and every morning there is a present in it for him."

"Cousin Elizabeth is spoiling us just the same way," said Eugenia.

"Those little souvenir spoons she sent up with the chocolate yesterday are perfect darlings. I think the world of mine."

"I wonder what the surprise will be to-day," said Lloyd, as the jingling of silver and tinkling of ice in gla.s.ses sounded on the stairs.

"I know," said Betty, running to open the door for the procession of tray bearers. "It is conundrum salad. I helped G.o.dmother make it."

Eliot, Mom Beck, and the housemaid entered in solemn file, each bearing a tray containing a simple lunch, in the centre of which was a fancy plate containing a pile of crisp green lettuce.

"Isn't that a dainty dish to set before the king!" exclaimed Joyce, examining her conundrum salad. "Oh, girls, how that did fool me. I could have sworn that those were real lettuce leaves, and they are only paper.

But what a clever imitation, and what a lot of conundrums written inside!"

"See if you can guess this one?" cried Eugenia. "Isn't it funny?" and she read a clever one that set them all to thinking. There was much laughter when they finally had to give it up, and she told them the answer.

"Now listen to this," said Lloyd next, and then it was Joyce's turn, and the lunch was eaten in the midst of much laughing and many bright remarks that the salad called forth.

"You wouldn't think that having measles was so funny," said Betty, when the trays had been carried out, "if you had had it the way I did. It was in the middle of harvest, so n.o.body had time to take care of me. Cousin Hetty had so much to do that she couldn't come up-stairs many times a day to wait on me. She'd just look in the door and ask if I wanted anything, and hurry away again. My little room in the west gable was _so_ hot. The sun beat against it all afternoon, and the water in the pitcher wouldn't stay cool. Sometimes I'd cry till my throat ached, wishing that I had a mother to sit beside me, and put her cool hands against my face, and rub my back when it ached, and sing me to sleep.

And after I got better, and my appet.i.te began to come back, I'd lie and watch the door for hours, it seemed to me, waiting for Cousin Hetty to come up with my meals. I'd think of all sorts of dainty things that I had read about, until my mouth watered. Then when she came, maybe there would be nothing but a cup of tea slopped all over the saucer, and a piece of burnt toast. Or maybe it would be a bowl of soup half cold, or too salty. Poor Cousin Hetty was so busy she couldn't bother to fix things for me. I couldn't help crying when she'd gone down-stairs. I'd be so disappointed.

"But the worst thing of all was what Davy did one day. He wanted to be kind and nice, and do something for me, so he went off to the pond, and sat there on the hot sunny bank all morning, trying to catch me a fish.

To everybody's surprise he did catch one about eleven o'clock,--a slimy-looking little catfish,--and came running straight up to my room with it in his dirty little hands. He smelled so fishy I could scarcely stand it, for it was the day I felt the very worst. But he didn't know that. He climbed up on the bed with it, and held it almost under my nose for me to see. He was so happy that his dirty little face was all one big smile. He kept saying, as he dangled it around, 'Ain't he pretty, Betty? I ketched him. I ketched him for you, 'cause you're sick.'

"Ugh! I can smell that fish yet! I smelled it all afternoon, for he took it down-stairs to have it cleaned and cooked. About one o'clock he came back up-stairs after I had had my lunch, and there he had it on a plate, fried up into a crisp. I couldn't have swallowed any of it, to save me, but I couldn't disappoint the little fellow when he had tried so hard to please me, so I had to ask him to leave it, and told him maybe I would feel more like eating after I had slept awhile. So he went out perfectly satisfied, and I lay there, growing sicker every minute from the smell of that fried fish. At last I gathered up strength enough to throw it out of the window to the cat, but the plate still smelled of it, and n.o.body came in to take it away until after dark.

"Cousin Hetty was dreadfully worried when she found that Davy had been in my room, but he didn't take the measles, and that was the only time I saw him while I was sick. I was alone all the time. You can't imagine how doleful it was to stay in that hot dark room all day by myself."

"You poor little Bettykins!" sighed Joyce, sympathetically. "It's too bad you can't have the measles all over again with us, here at the house party. It really isn't a bit bad now. I am enjoying it immensely."

As she spoke there was the sound of a horse's hoofs in the avenue, and a moment later a shrill whistle sounded under the window.

"h.e.l.lo, Measles," shouted a merry voice.

"It's Rob!" exclaimed Lloyd. "h.e.l.lo yourself!" she called back, laughingly. "Come in and have some, won't you?"

"No, thank you," he answered. "You are too generous. But I say, Lloyd, let down a basket or something, won't you? I've got a surprise here for you all."

"Take the sc.r.a.p-basket, Betty," said Lloyd, excitedly pointing to a fancy little basket made of braided sweet gra.s.s, and tied with many bows. "My skipping-rope is in the closet. You can let it down by that if you tie it to the handles."

A moment later Betty's smiling face appeared at the window, and the basket was lowered to the boy on the horse below.

"I can't reach it without standing up on the saddle," called Rob. "Whoa, there, Ben! Easy, old boy!" With feet wide apart to balance himself, Rob carefully dropped something from the basket he carried on his arm to the one that Betty dangled on a level with his eyes.

"One for you, too, Betty," the girls heard him say, but he had cantered off down the avenue before they discovered what it was he had left for them.

Betty carefully drew the basket in, fearful lest the rope might slip, for "the surprise" was heavy. As she landed it safely and turned the basket over on the floor, out rolled four fat little fox-terrier puppies.

"What darlings!" cried Lloyd, springing off her cot to catch up one of the plump little things as it sprawled toward her on its awkward paws.

"They are so much alike we'll never be able to tell them apart unless we tie different coloured ribbons on them. I'm going to name mine Bob after Robby, 'cause he gave them to us."

"Let's name them all that," said Betty. "We'll be taking them away to different places soon, so it will not make any difference." The suggestion was received with applause, and Eugenia sent Eliot to her trunk for a piece of pale green ribbon. "I'm going to have my Bob's necktie match my room," she said.

"We'll all do that, too," said Joyce, and in a few minutes the four Bobs were frisking clumsily over the floor, in their respective bows of pink, yellow, blue, and green. They afforded the girls entertainment all that afternoon, and in the evening there was another surprise.

In the starlight, when it was dark enough for the blinds and shutters to be all thrown open in their rooms, they heard a carriage coming down the avenue. It, too, stopped under the window, and in a moment they recognised the tw.a.n.g of Malcolm's banjo and Miss Allison's guitar. "It's a serenade," called Eugenia. "What a good alto voice Keith has!"

It was an old college tune that rose on the air. Miss Allison had parodied the words of the peanut song:

Any fellow that has any _mea_-sles And giveth his neighbour none, He sha'n't have any of _my_ measles When his mea-_sles_ are gone.

Oh, that will be joyful, joyful, Oh, that will be joyful, when his mea-sles are gone.