Kitabı oku: «Dorothy at Oak Knowe», sayfa 9

CHAPTER XIII
A BAD DAY FOR JOHN GILPIN

What had happened!

Those who were sliding down that icy incline could not stop to see, and those who were on the ground below covered their eyes that they might not. Yet opened them again to stare helplessly at the dangling figure of a girl outside that terrible slide. For in a moment, when the clutching fingers must unclose, the poor child must drop to destruction. That was inevitable.

Then they saw it was Dorothy, who hung thus, suspended between life and death. Dorothy in her white and pink, the daintiest darling of them all, who had so enjoyed her first – and last! – day at this sport.

Fresh shudders ran through the onlookers as they realized this and the Lady Principal sank down in a faint. Then another groan escaped them – the merest possibility of hope.

Behold! The girl did not fall! Another’s small hand reached over the low side of the toboggan and clutched the blanket-covered shoulder of the imperiled child. Another hand! the other shoulder, and hope grew stronger. Someone had caught the falling Dorothy – she and her would-be-rescuer were now moving – moving – slowly downward along the very edge – one swaying perilously with the motion, the other wholly unseen save for those outstretched hands, with their death-fast grip upon the snowy wool.

Down – down! And faster now! Till the hands of the tallest watchers could reach and clasp the feet, then the whole precious little body of “Miss Dixie,” their favorite from the Southland.

But even then, as strong arms drew her into their safe shelter, the small hands which had supported her to safety clung still so tight that only the Bishop’s could loose their clasp.

“Gwendolyn! You brave, sweet girl! Let go – let go. It’s all right now – Dorothy did not fall – You saved her life. Look up, my daughter. Don’t faint now when all is over. Look up, you noble child, and hear me tell you: Dorothy is safe and it is you who saved her life. At the risk of your own you saved her life.”

Clasped close in his fatherly arms, Gwendolyn shuddered but obeyed and looked up into the Bishop’s face.

“Say that again. Please. Say that again – very slow – if it’s the – the truth.”

“Gwendolyn, I tell you now, in the presence of God and these witnesses, it has been your precious privilege to save a human life, by your swift thought and determined action you have saved the life of Dorothy Calvert, and God bless you for it.”

“Then we are quits!”

For another moment after she had said those words she still rested quietly where she was, then slowly rose and looked about her.

Dorothy had been in the greater peril of the two, yet more unconscious of it. She had not seen how high above the ground she hung, nor how directly beneath was the lake with the thinly frozen spots whence the thicker ice had been cut for the ice-houses; nor how there were heaped up rocks bordering the water, left as nature had designed to beautify the scene.

She was the quickest to recover her great fright and she was wholly unhurt. Her really greater wonder was that poor Miss Muriel should happen to faint away just then.

“I’m glad she did, though, if it won’t make her ill, ’cause then she didn’t see me dangling, like I must have, and get scared for that. Likely she stayed out doors too long. She isn’t very strong and it’s mighty cold, I think.”

So they hurried her indoors, Gwendolyn with her, yet neither of them allowed to discuss the affair until they were both warmly dressed in ordinary clothes and set down to a cute little lunch table, “all for your two selves,” Nora explained: “And to eat all these warm things and drink hot coffee – as much of it as you like. It was Miss Muriel herself who said that!”

This was a treat indeed. Coffee at any meal was kept for a special treat, but to have unlimited portions of it was what Dolly called “a step beyond.”

Curious glances, but smiling and tender, came often their way, from other tables in the room, yet the sport, and happily ended hazard of the morning had given to every girl a fine appetite, so that, for once, knives and forks were more busily employed than tongues.

Neither did the two heroines of the recent tragic episode feel much like speech. Now that it was all over and they could think about it more clearly their hearts were filled with the solemnity of what had happened; and Gwendolyn said all that was needed for both, when once laying her hand on Dorothy’s she whispered:

“You saved my life – the Bishop says that I saved yours. After that we’re even and we must love each other all our lives.”

“Oh! we must, we must! And I do, I shall!” returned Dorothy, with tears rising.

Then this festive little lunch dispatched, they were captured by their schoolmates and led triumphantly into the cheerful library, the scene of all their confabs, and Winifred demanded:

“Now, in the name of all the Oak Knowe girls, I demand a detailed history of what happened. Begin at the beginning and don’t either of you dare to skip a single moment of the time from where you started down the old toboggan alongside of John Gilpin and that boy. I fancy if the tale were properly told his ride would outdo that of his namesake of old times. Dorothy Calvert, begin.”

“Why, dear, I don’t know what to say, except that, as you say, we started. My lovely toboggan went beautifully, as it had all the time, but theirs didn’t act right. I believe that the old man was scared so that he couldn’t do a thing except meddle with Robin, who doesn’t know much more about sliding than I do, or did. He – ”

“I saw he was getting on the wrong side, right behind you two, as we shot past on ours,” interrupted Serena Huntington, “and we both called out: ‘steer! steer right!’ but I suppose they didn’t hear or understand. We were so far down then that I don’t know.”

“Gwen, dear, you tell the rest,” begged Dorothy, cuddling up to the girl she now so dearly loved.

It wasn’t often that Gwendolyn was called to the front like this, but she found it very pleasant; so readily took up the tale where Dorothy left it, “at the very beginning” as “Dixie” laughingly declared.

“It seems as if there was nothing to tell – it was all so quick – it just happened! Half way down, it must have been, the farmer’s sled hit ours. That scared me, too, and I called, just as Serena had, and as everybody on the slide was doing as they passed: ‘Steer right!’ I guess that only confused the poor old man, for he kept bobbing into us and that hindered our getting away from him ourselves.

“Next I knew, Dolly was off the sled and over the edge of the slide, clinging to it for her life. I knew she couldn’t hold on long and so I rolled off and grabbed her. Then we began to slide and I knew somebody was trying to help by pushing us downward toward the bottom. I don’t know who that was. I don’t know anything clearly. It was all like a flash – I guessed we would be killed – I shut my eyes and – that’s all.”

To break the too suggestive silence which followed with its hint of a different, sorrowful ending, Florita Sheraton exclaimed:

“I know who did that pushing! It was our little Robin Adair, or whatever his name is. Fact. That home-made toboggan of his came to grief. The old man has told me. He’s out in the kitchen now warming up his bruises. You see, there wasn’t anything to hang on by, on the sides. He had scorned Robin’s advice to nail something on and he nearly ground his fingers off holding on by the flat bottom. It went so swift – his fingers ached so – he yanked them out from under – Robin screeched – they ran into you – they both tumbled off – Robin lodged against you but John Gilpin rode to the bottom – thus wise!”

Florita illustrated by rolling one hand over and under the other; and thus, in fact, had John Gilpin taken his first toboggan slide.

Laughter showed that the tension of excitement which had held these schoolgirls all that day had yielded to ordinary feelings, and now most of them went away for study or practicing, leaving Dorothy and Gwendolyn alone. After a moment, they also left the library, bound kitchenwards, to visit old John and see if Robin were still thereabouts.

“I wish there were something I could do for that boy,” said Gwen. “I feel so grateful to him for helping us and he looked so poor. Do you suppose, Dolly, if Mamma offered him money for that new coat he jested about, that he would be offended.”

“Of course, Gwen, I don’t know about him. You never can tell about other folks, but Uncle Seth thinks it’s a mighty safe rule ‘to put yourself in his place’; and if I were in Robin’s I’d be ‘mad as a hatter’ to have money offered me for doing a little thing like that. Wouldn’t you?”

“Why, yes, Dorothy, of course I would. The idea! But I’m rich, or my people are, which is the same thing. But he’s poor. His feelings may not, cannot, be the same as our sort have.”

“Why can’t they? I don’t like to have you think that way. You ought not. Gwen you must not. For that will make us break friendship square off. I’m not poor Dawkins’s niece, though I might be much worse off than that, but once I was ‘poor’ like Robin. I was a deserted baby, adopted by a poor letter carrier. Now, what do you think of that? Can’t I have nice feelings same as you? And am I a bit better – in myself – because in reality I belonged to a rich old family, than I was when I washed dishes in Mother Martha’s kitchen? Tell me that, before we go one step further.”

Dorothy had stopped short in the hall and faced about, anxiously studying the face of this “Peer,” who had now become so dear to her.

Gwendolyn’s face was a puzzle; as, for a time, the old opinions and the new struggled within her. But the struggle was brief. Her pride, her justice, and now her love, won the victory.

“No, you darling, brave little thing, you are not. Whatever you are you were born such, and I love you, I love you. If I’d only been born in the States I’d have had no silly notions.”

“Don’t you believe that, Gwen. Aunt Betty says that human nature is the same all the world over. You’d have been just as much of a snob if you’d been ‘raised in ol’ Ferginny’ as you are here. Oh! my! I didn’t mean that. I meant – You must understand what I mean!”

A flush of mortification at her too plain speaking made Dorothy hide her face, but her hands were swiftly pulled down and a kiss left in their place.

“Don’t you fret, Queenie! It’s taken lots of Mamma’s plain speaking to keep me half-way decent to others less rich than I, and I’m afraid it’ll take lots of yours, too, to put the finishing touches to that lesson. Come on. We love each other now, and love puts everything right. Come on. Let’s find that Robin and see what we can do for him without hurting his feelings.”

“Oh! yes, come, let’s hurry! But first to the Lady Principal. Maybe we can help them both. Won’t that be fine?”

But they were not to help Robin just then. A groan from the servants’ parlor, a pleasant room opening from the kitchen, arrested their attention and made them pause to listen. Punctuated by other sounds, a querulous voice was complaining:

“Seems if there warn’t a hull spot left on my old body that ain’t bruised sore as a bile. Why, sir, when I fell off that blamed sled we’d tinkered up” – groan – “I didn’t know anything. Just slid – an’ slid – an’ rolled over and over, never realizin’ which side of me was topmost till I fetched up – kerwhack! to the very bottom. Seemed as if I’d fell out o’ the sky into the bottomless pit. Oh! dear!”

Dawkins’s voice it was that answered him, both pitying and teasing him in the same breath:

“I’m sure it’s sorry I am, Mr. Gilpin, for what’s befell; but for a man that’s lived in a tobogganing country ever since he was born, you begun rather late in life to learn the sport. Why – ”

“Ain’t no older’n the Bishop! Can’t one man do same’s t’other, I’d like to know, Mis’ Dawkins?”

“Seems not;” laughed the maid. “But, here, take this cup of hot spearmint tea. ’Twill warm your old bones and help ’em to mend; an’ next time you start playin’ children’s game – why don’t! And for goodness’ sake, John, quit groanin’! Takin’ on like that don’t help any and I tell you fair and square I’ve had about all the strain put on my nerves, to-day, ’t I can bear. What was your bit of a roll down that smooth ice compared to what our girls went through?”

“Has you got any nuts in your pockets? Has you?” broke in Millikins-Pillikins, who had been a patient listener to the confab between the farmer and the nurse till she could wait no longer. Never had the old man come to Oak Knowe without some dainty for the little girl and she expected such now.

“No, sissy, I haven’t. I dunno as I’ve got a pocket left. I dunno nothing, except – except – What’ll SHE say when I go home all lamed up like this! Oh! hum! Seems if I was possessed to ha’ done it, and so she thought. But ’twas Robin’s fault. If Robin hadn’t beset me so I’d never thought of it. Leastwise, not to go the length I did. If I’d – But there! What’s the use? But one thing’s sure. I’ll get shut of that boy, see if I don’t. He’s well now an’ why should I go to harboring reptiles in my buzzum? Tell me that if ye can! Reptiles. That’s what he was, a-teasin’ an’ misleadin’ a poor old man into destruction. Huh! I’ll make it warm for him – trust John Gilpin for that!”

Dawkins had long since departed, unable to bear the old man’s lamentations, and leaving the cup, or pot, of hot tea on the table beside him. But little Grace couldn’t tear herself away. She lingered, first hoping for the nuts she craved, and later in wonder about the “reptile” he said was in his bosom. There were big books full of pictures in the library, that Auntie Prin sometimes let her see. She loved to have them opened on the rug and lie down beside them to study them. She knew what “reptiles” were. That was the very one of all the Natural History books with the blue bindings that she liked best, it was so delightfully crawly and sent such funny little thrills all through her. If a picture could do that what might not the real thing do!

“Show it to me, please, Mr. Gilpin. I never saw a reptile in all my whole life long! Never!”

The farmer had paid scant attention to her chatter; indeed, he scarcely heard it, his mind being wholly engrossed now with what his dame would say to him, on his return home; and in his absent-mindedness he reached out for the drink good Dawkins had left him and put the pot to his lips taking a great draught.

An instant later the pot flew out of his hand and he sprang to his feet, clutching frantically at his bosom and yelling as if he were stung. For the contents of the pot were boiling hot and he had scalded his throat most painfully.

But wide-eyed little Grace did not understand his wild action, as, still clutching his shirt front, he hurled the pot far from him. Of course, the “reptile” was biting! That must be why he screeched so, and now all her desire for a personal acquaintance with such a creature vanished. She must get as far away from it as possible before it appeared on the surface of his smock and, darting doorward, was just in time to receive the pot and what was left in it upon her curly head. Down she dropped as if she had been shot, and Dorothy entering was just in time to see her fall. The scene apparently explained itself. The angry face of the old man, his arm still rigid, in the gesture of hurling, the fallen child and the broken pot – who could guess that it was horror at his uncalculated deed which kept him in that pose?

Not Dorothy, who caught up little Grace and turned a furious face upon poor John, crying out in fierce contempt:

“Oh! you horrible old man! First you tried to kill me and now you have killed her!”

CHAPTER XIV
EXPLANATIONS ARE IN ORDER

Dorothy ran straight to the Lady Principal’s room, too horrified by what she imagined was the case to pause on the way and too excited to feel the heavy burden she carried.

Nobody met her to stop her or inquire what had happened. Gwendolyn had been called to join her mother and had seen nothing of the incident, and Dorothy burst into the pretty parlor – only to find it empty. Laying Millikins down on the couch she started to find help, but was promptly called back by the child herself.

“Where you going, Dolly Doodles? What you carry me for, running so?”

“Why – why – darling – can you speak? Are you alive? Oh! you dear – you dear! I thought you were killed!” cried the relieved girl kneeling beside the couch and hugging the astonished little one.

“Why for can’t I speak, Dorothy? Why for can’t I be alive? The ‘reptile’ didn’t bite me, it bited him. That’s why he hollered so and flung things. See, Dolly, I’m all wet with smelly stuff like ‘meddy’ some kind, that Dawkins made him. And what you think? Soon’s he started drinking it the ‘reptile’ must not have liked it and must have bited him to make him stop – ‘Ou-u-c-ch!’ Just like that he said it, an’ course I runned, an’ the tea-pot flew, an’ I fell down, and you come, grabbed me and said things, and – and – But the reptile didn’t get Gracie, did it? No it didn’t, ’cause I runned like anything, and ’cause you come, and – Say, Dolly! I guess I’d rather see ’em in the book. I guess I don’t want to get acquainted with no live ones like I thought I did. No, sir!”

“What in the world do you mean, Baby? Whatever are you talking about? Oh! you mischief, you gave poor Dolly such a fright when you fell down like that!”

“Why, Dolly Doodles, how funny! I fall down lots of times. Some days I fall down two-ten-five times, and sometimes I’d cry, but Auntie Prin don’t like that. She’ll say right off: ‘There, Millikins, I wouldn’t bother to do that. You haven’t hurt the floor any.’ So course I stop. ’Cause if I had hurted the floor she’d let me cry a lot. She said so, once. Mr. Gilpin didn’t have a single nut in his pockets. He said so. And he talked awful funny! Not as if to me at all, so must ha’ been to the ‘reptile’ in his ‘buzzum.’ Do ‘reptiles’ buzz, Dolly, same as sting-bees do? And wouldn’t you rather carry nuts in your pockets for such nice little girls as me, than crawly things inside your smock to bite you? I think a smock’s the funniest kind of clothes, and Mr. Gilpin’s the funniest kind of man inside ’em. Don’t you?”

“If either one can match you for funniness, you midget, I’ll lose my guess. Seems if this had been the ‘funniest’ kind of day ever was. But I’ll give you up till you get ready to explain your ‘reptile’ talk. Changing the subject, did you get a slide to-day?”

“Yes, lots of them. What do think? I didn’t have anybody give me a nice new toboggan with my name on it, like you had; so the Bishop he told Auntie Prin that he’d look out for me this year same’s he did last year. I hadn’t grown so much bigger, he thought. Course he’s terrible big and I’m terrible little, so all he does is tuck me inside his great toboggan coat. Buttons it right around me – this way – so I never could slip out, could I? And I don’t have to hold on at all he holds on for me and Auntie’s not afraid, that way. Don’t you think it was terrible nice for Gwendolyn to give you your things?”

“What things, dear? Gwen has given me nothing that I know of. Is this another mystery of yours?”

“It isn’t not no mystery, I don’t know what them are, except when girls like you get lost right in their own houses and don’t get found again right soon. But I know ‘secrets.’ Secrets are what the one you have ’em about don’t get told. That was a secret about your things, Gwen said. You didn’t get told, did you?”

“I have a suspicion that I’m being told now,” answered Dorothy, soberly. “Suppose you finish the telling, dear, while we are airing the subject. What are the things you’re talking about?”

“Why, aren’t you stupid, Dolly? About the be-a-u-tiful blankets were made into your suit. Auntie said they were the handsomest ever was. Lady Jane had bought ’em to have new things made for Gwen, ’cause Lady Jane’s going far away across the ocean and she wanted to provide every single thing Gwen might want. In case anything happened to Gwen’s old one.

“So Gwen said, no, she didn’t need ’em and you did. She guessed your folks hadn’t much money, she’d overheard the Bishop say so. That’s the way she knows everything is ’cause she always ‘overhears.’ I told Auntie Prin that I thought that was terrible nice, and I’d like to learn overhearing; and she sauced me back the funniest! My! she did! Said if she ever caught me overhearing I’d be put to bed with nothing but bread and water to eat, until I forgot the art. Just like that she said it! Seems if overhearing is badness. She does so want Gwendolyn to be really noble. Auntie Prin thinks it noble for Gwen to give up her blankets and to have that be-a-u-tiful toboggan bought for you with your name on it. You aren’t real poor, are you, Dolly? Not like the beggar folks come ‘tramping’ by and has ‘victuals’ given to them? Bishop says all little girls must be good to the poor. That’s when he wants me to put my pennies in my Mite Box for the little heathen. I don’t so much care about the heathen and Hugh – ”

But Dorothy suddenly put the child down, knowing that once started upon the theme of “Brother Hugh” the little sister’s talk was endless. And she was deeply troubled.

She had altogether forgotten John Gilpin and the accusation she had hurled at him. Nothing now remained in her mind but thoughts of Gwendolyn’s rich gifts and indignation against her. Why had she done it? As a sort of payment for Dorothy’s assistance at the Maiden’s Bath?

Meeting Miss Muriel in the hall she cried:

“Oh! my dear lady, I am in such trouble! May I talk to you a moment?”

“Certainly, Dorothy. Come this way. Surely there can be nothing further have happened to you, to-day.”

Safe in the shelter and privacy of a small classroom, Dorothy told her story into wise and loving ears; and to be comforted at once.

“You are all wrong, Dorothy. I am sure that there was no such thought as payment for any deed of yours in poor Gwendolyn’s mind. You have been invariably kind to her in every way possible; and until this chance came she had found none in which to show you that she realized this and loved you for it. Why, my dear, if you could have seen her happiness when I told her it was a beautiful thing for her to do, you would certainly have understood her and been glad to give her the chance she was glad to take. It is often harder to accept favors than to bestow them. It takes more grace. Now, dear, let’s call that ‘ghost laid,’ as Dawkins says. Hunt up Gwen, tell her how grateful you are to her for her rich, unselfish gifts, and – do it with a real Dorothy face; not with any hint of offended pride – which is not natural to it! And go at once, then drop the subject and forget it. We were all so thankful that you chose her this morning without knowing.”

Back came the smiles as Miss Muriel hoped to see them, and away sped Dorothy to put the good advice in practice; and five minutes later Gwendolyn was the happiest girl at Oak Knowe, because her gifts had been ascribed to real affection only.

“Now, Gwen, that we’ve settled that, let’s go and see what we can do for Robin. Heigho, Winifred! you’re just in time to aid a worthy cause – Come on to Lady Principal!”

“Exactly whither I was bound!” waving a letter overhead. “Going a-begging, my dears, if you please!” she returned, clasping Gwen’s waist on one side to walk three abreast. A trivial action in itself but delightful to the “Peer,” showing that this free-spoken “Commoner” no longer regarded her as “stand-offish” but “just one of the crowd.”

“Begging for what, Win?”

“That’s a secret!”

“Pooh! You might as well tell. Secrets always get found out. I’ve just discovered one – by way of chattering Millikins-Pillikins. Guess it.”

“I couldn’t, Dolly, I’m too full of my own. As for that child’s talk – but half of it has sense.”

“So I thought, too, listening to her. But half did have sense and that is – Who do you think gave me my beautiful toboggan things?”

“Why, your Aunt Betty, I suppose, since she does everything else for you,” answered Winifred promptly. “Anyhow, don’t waste time on guesses – Tell!”

Then she glanced up into Gwendolyn’s face and saw how happy it was, and hastily added:

“No, you needn’t tell, after all, I know. It was Gwen, here, the big-hearted dear old thing! She’s the only girl at Oak Knowe who’s rich enough and generous enough to do such a splendid thing.”

“Good for you, Win, you guessed right at once!” answered Dolly trying to clap her hands but unable to loosen them from her comrades’ clasp. “Now for yours!”

“Wait till we get to the ‘audience chamber’! Come on.”

But even yet they were hindered. In the distance, down at the end of the hall, Dorothy caught sight of Mr. Gilpin, evidently just departing from the house. A more dejected figure could scarcely be imagined, nor a more ludicrous one, as he limped toward the entrance, hands on hips and himself bent forward forlornly. Below his rough top-coat which he had discarded on his arrival, hung the tatters of his smock that had been worn to ribbons by his roll down the slide.

Nobody knew what had become of his own old beaver hat, but a light colored derby, which the chef had loaned him, sat rakishly over one ear, in size too small for the whole top of his bald head.

“Looks as if he had two foreheads!” said Winifred, who couldn’t help laughing at his comical appearance, with part of his baldness showing at front and back of the borrowed hat.

Dorothy laughed, too, yet felt a guilty regret at the way she had spoken to him. She had accused him of “trying to kill her” as well as Gwen and little Grace; but he “kill anything”? Wicked, even to say that.

“There goes John Gilpin, and, girls, I must speak to him. Come – I can’t let him go that way!”

As his “good foot” crossed the threshold Dorothy’s hand was on his shoulder and her voice begging:

“Oh! please, Mr. Gilpin! Do forgive that horrible thing I said! I didn’t know, I didn’t understand, I didn’t mean it – I thought – it looked – Do come back just a minute and let me explain.”

The old fellow turned and gazed into her pleading eyes, but at first scarcely heard her.

“Why, ’tis the little maid! hersel’ that was cryin’ that night on the big railway platform. The night that Robin lad was anigh kilt. Something’s mixed up in me head. What’s it, lassie, you want?”

“I want your forgiveness, Mr. Gilpin. When I saw Gracie on the floor and the broken pot beside her I thought – you’d – you’d tried – and account of your sled hitting Gwen and me – Do come in and rest. You’re worse hurt than anybody thought, I’m afraid. There, there, that’s right. Come back and rest till the team goes into town for the Saturday night’s supplies. It always goes you know, and Michael will get the driver to drop you at your own door. I’m sure he will.”

Obediently, he allowed her to lead him back into the hall and to seat him on the settle beside the radiator. The warmth of that and the comfort of three sympathetic girls soon restored his wandering wits and he was as ready to talk as they to listen.

“You do forgive, don’t you, dear old John?”

“Sure, lassie, there’s nought about forgiveness, uther side. It was a bit misunderstandin’ was all. The wee woman a-pleadin’ for treats out of pocket, and me thinkin’ hard o’ Robin, for coaxin’ an old man to make a fool of hissel’. Me feeling that minute as if ’twas all his fault and thinking I’d cherished a snake, a reptile, in my buzzum, and sayin’ it out loud, likes I have a bad habit of doing.

“Silly I was, not remembering how’t a child takes all things literal. Ha, ha, ha! To think it! When I scalded mysel’ with the hot tea the bairnie should fancy I yelled at a sarpent’s bite! Sure, I could split my sides a-laughin’ but for the hurt I gave her. How is she doin’, lass? I’ve waited this long spell for someone to pass by and give me the word, but nobody has. Leastwise, them that passes has no mind for old John in his dumps.”

“Why, Mr. Gilpin, she wasn’t hurt at all; and it’s just as you said. She thought you had a real snake in your clothes and it had bitten you. She’s all right now, right as can be; and so will you be as soon as you get home and into your wife’s good care. She – ”

“Ah, my Dorothy! ’Tis she I dread. Not a word’ll she say, like enough, but the look she will give to my silly face – Hmm. She’s a rare silent woman is my Dame, but she can do a power o’ thinkin’.”

“Yes, she can, and the first thing she’ll think is how glad she is to have her husband back again, safe and sound.”

“Aye, but Dorothy, hark ye! I’m safe, I’ll grant ye that; but – sound? ’Tis different letters spells that word. Sound? I’ll no’ be that for weeks to come!” and the poor fellow, who certainly had been badly bruised and lucky to have escaped broken bones, sighed profoundly.

Winifred had an inspiration.

“Speaking of Robins, suppose we write her a round-robin letter? Right here and now, on the back of this letter of Father’s? It’s a grand good letter for me and we’ll write so nicely of you, Mr. John, that it’ll be a good one for her, too.”

“Will ye? A real letter explainin’ about the accident, when the lassie’s toboggan got in our way and we got that mixed ’twas nigh the death of the lot? Dame’d be proud enough to get that letter. Sure, I believe ’twould set her thinkin’ of other things, and she’ll be liker to overlook my foolishness.”

They all laughed at the crafty manner in which he shipped his responsibility for the accident from his shoulders to theirs; but Winifred plumped herself down on the settle beside him and, using it for a desk, concocted an amusing story of the whole day’s happenings. The other girls had less of the gift of writing, but each added a few words and signed her name with a flourish. Altogether it was a wonderful document, so the farmer thought, as Winifred tore that half-sheet from her father’s letter, folded it in a fantastic way and gave it him.

Indeed, he was so pleased with it and so anxious to get it into his wife’s hands that, after turning it over and about, in admiration of the “true lover’s knot” into which Win had folded it, he rose to go away. All his stiffness was forgotten, he almost neglected to drag his lame foot, he firmly declined to stay for supper or any ride with the Oak Knowe team, so completely had the kindness of the three girls cured him.