The Twin Cousins Part 7

Flaxie did just what you might expect she would do: clapped her hands and cried for joy.

"What's her name? Has she any teeth? Has she any curls? Where does she sleep?"

"Why, what's the matter now?" said Uncle Ben, coming in as Flaxie and Milly were whirling around the room in each other's arms.

"Oh, good-bye, Uncle Ben, good-bye! I don't know what her name is, but there's a little sister at home, and I must go right off in the cars. I _wish_ I had some _seven-legged_ boots! Good-bye, Uncle Ben."

She meant _seven-league_ boots, for the cars did seem very slow. And when she got home the baby was so small that she laughed and cried again.

"Oh, it's the little _bit-of-est_ baby ever I saw!"

Phil had a grieved lip. He hardly liked the little pink morsel in the nurse's lap; but he was glad to see Flaxie, and stood on his head with delight.

Mamma looked very happy, and so did Dr. Papa. Ninny went singing about the house, and Preston whistled more than ever.

It was all beautiful, only Flaxie wanted to have a "talk" with mamma, but nurse said, "You'd better go down-stairs to play;" and then, not long after supper, she said again, "And now you'd better go to bed!"

"A queer woman, scolding so to other people's little girls," thought Flaxie.

CHAPTER V.

THAT HOMELY MISS PIKE.

The nurse did leave the room next day for a minute, and Flaxie ran up to the bed and nestled close to her mother.

"Now I'll tell you all about it. I wanted to see you so, my heart ached and ached, and once I ran away home."

"You did, darling? I'm glad I didn't know it," said mamma, kissing her.

"I didn't tell anybody--much," returned Flaxie. "I thought 'twasn't polite. And then auntie bought me some red worsteds, and I made some mittens for a sick girl named Lucy, that can't wipe her mouth, or go to school, or talk; and it made me just as happy!"

"That was right. Of course it made you happy to forget yourself and help somebody else."

"Yes'm, I know _all about_ that!" replied Flaxie, with a wise look. She had learned a deep lesson from those mittens.

"But I don't ever want to go away again," said she, dropping a tear on the pillow, "for there isn't any _you_ and Dr. Papa anywhere else."

"Oh, some time you'll want to."

"No, mamma. When I said I'd go there to school with Milly I didn't know about my baby sister. I ought to stay and take care of her, and never go away any more as long as I live,--not till I die, and go to heaven."

But three months pa.s.sed, and Flaxie had forgotten all this. She was always fond of the baby, whose name was Ethel Gray; but sometimes she thought Ethel needn't cry quite so much, and ought to cut a tooth, and ought to have more hair.

The world looked dark to Flaxie, for she was sick that spring, and a long while getting well. It was a queer sort of illness too. First it made her look yellow and then pea-green, and Julia had to sing and smile a great deal in order to keep her at all comfortable.

"After dandelions, b.u.t.tercups, After b.u.t.tercups, clover; One blossom follows another one, Over and over and over!"

sang Julia one evening, when Flaxie was making ready to take her medicine.

"Now, Flaxie dear, swallow it like a lady."

"Yes. Dr. Papa knows a great deal, and I shall do just as he says,"

replied the little girl, grasping her cup of rhubarb tightly in one hand, and a gla.s.s of cold water in the other.

It was a comfort to see her take her medicine for once without crying, and Preston shouted "Hurrah!"

She was pea-green at this time, and oh, so cross! For supper she had had three slices of bread and b.u.t.ter, and cried because she couldn't have the fourth.

"If the poor little thing wasn't so cross we'd send her to Aunt Charlotte's for a change," said Dr. Papa in a low voice to his wife; but Flaxie heard it.

"Oh, mamma, do lemme go to Aunt Charlotte's, and go to school with Milly; she has such a dear teacher! And Milly's my twin cousin, born just the same month. And I won't be cross if they _don't_ give me enough to eat; and I'll take a whole bushel o' pills!"

"Let her go," laughed papa; "the bushel of pills settles it."

Flaxie was six and a half years old, and could have gone to Hilltop alone--almost; but as Captain Jones happened to be travelling that way, Dr. Papa thought he would pretend to put her in his charge.

"Did you ever go in the cars alone, Ninny, with your own valise, and a check in your pocket?" asked Flaxie in glee, as she rode up to the station; "and oh, a umbrella, too!"

"No, I never did--at your age," replied Ninny, who was now a young lady of twelve.

"You see Uncle Ben will be there to meet me when we get to Hilltop,"

said Miss Frizzle, fluttering her darling umbrella against the captain's spectacles; "and won't he laugh when he sees me coming all alone, with a check in my pocket?"

"Good-bye, curly-head; take care of that umbrella," said her father, kissing her pea-green cheek, and hurrying out of the car as the bell rang.

"Let's see, where is Hilltop, and how will you know when you get there?"

asked the captain, before Flaxie had time to cry.

"Oh, it's where Uncle Ben lives and Aunt Charlotte," replied the little traveller, who had a vague idea that the house was in the middle of a snow-drift, with roses in the front yard and strawberries behind it.

"Their name is Allen."

"Well, I'm glad you've told me all the particulars," said the captain gravely. "And I shall be easy, for we can't miss it."

Flaxie smiled and looked at her check. She felt the whole care of the journey, but it didn't trouble her at all, for the captain would tell her when to stop. She "'membered" all about Hilltop just as well as could be, but she didn't _'xactly_ know where it was!

It was a pleasant ride on that beautiful spring day, and the captain would have been very agreeable, only he seemed to have a perfect horror of "pinnuts," the very things Flaxie had dreamed about and expected to eat all the way. He shook his head at the peanut boys, and told her he "wished they would keep away with their trash!" If he had only gone into a smoking-car and left her, she might have bought some, for she had her red portemonnaie with her; but then he never thought of leaving her, for he really had no idea she was travelling alone.

She had said Uncle Ben would laugh at meeting her; and so he did. He threw up both hands and cried, "Bless me! what's all this?" for it is not every day one sees a little girl of just that color; but he looked sober the next minute.

"Poor little thing, you've had a hard time."

"Oh no, sir, not very," said Flaxie, thinking he meant the journey. "I like to travel alone."