Chapter 13. A Great Excitement

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_ CHAPTER XIII. A GREAT EXCITEMENT

THAT afternoon Betty's lively young voice grew droning and dull after a while, as she read the life of Dr. Donne, and at last she stopped altogether.

"Aunt Mary, I can't help thinking about the Fosters' father. Do you suppose he will come home and frighten them some night?"

"No, he would hardly dare to come where they are sure to be looking for him," said Aunt Mary. "Dear me, the thought makes me so nervous."

"When I have read to the end of this page I will just run down to see Nelly a few minutes, if you can spare me. I keep dreading to see her until I am almost afraid to go."

Miss Mary sighed and said yes. Somehow she didn't get hold of Betty's love,--only her duty.

Betty lingered in the garden and picked some mignonette before she started, and a bright carnation or two from Aunt Barbara's special plants. The Fosters' house was farther down the street on the same side, and Nelly's blinds were shut, but if Betty had only known it, poor Nelly was looking out wistfully through them, and wishing with all her heart that her young neighbor would come in. She dreaded the meeting, too, but there was such a simple, frank friendliness about Betty Leicester that it did not hurt as if one of the other girls had come.

There came the sound of the gate-latch, and Nelly went eagerly down. "Come up to my room; I was sitting there sewing," she said, blushing very red, and Betty felt her own cheeks burn. How dreadful it must be not to have such a comforting dear father as hers! She put her arms round Nelly's neck and kissed her, and Nelly could hardly keep from crying; but up-stairs they went to the bedroom, where Betty had never happened to go before. She felt suddenly, as she never had before, how pinched and poor the Fosters must be. Nelly was determined to be brave and cheerful, and took up her sewing again. It happened to be a little waist of Betty's own. Betty tried to talk gayly about being very tired of reading "Walton's Lives." She had come to a dull place in Dr. Donne's memoirs, though she thought them delightful at first. She was just reading "The Village on the Cliff," on her own account, with perfect delight.

"Harry reads 'Walton's Angler,'" said Nelly. "That's the same man, isn't he? It is a stupid-looking old brown book that belonged to my grandfather."

"Papa reads it, too," said Betty, nodding her head wisely. "I am in such a hurry to have him come, when I think of Harry. I am sure that he will help him to be a naturalist or something like that. Mr. Buckland would have just loved Harry. I knew him when I was a little bit of a thing. Papa used to take me to see him in London, and all his dreadful beasts and snakes used to frighten me, but I do so like to remember him now. Harry makes me think of Robinson Crusoe and Mayne Reid's books, and those story-book boys who used to do such wild things fishing and hunting."

"We used to think that Harry never would get on because he spent so much time in the woods, but somehow he always learned his lessons too," said Nelly proudly; "and now his fishing brings in so much money that I don't know how we shall live when winter comes. We are so anxious about winter. Oh, Betty, it is easy to tell you, but I can't bear to have other people even look at me;" and she burst into tears and hid her face in her hands.

"Let us go out-doors, just down through the garden and across into the woods a little while," pleaded Betty. "Do, Nelly, dear!" and presently they were on their way. The fresh summer air and the sunshine were much better than the close-shaded room, where Nelly was startled by every sound about the house, and they soon lost their first feeling of constraint as they sat under a pine-tree whipping two of Miss Barbara Leicester's new tea-napkins. Betty had many things to say about her English life and her friends. Mary Beck never cared to hear much about England, and it was always delightful to have an interested listener. At last the sewing was finished, and Nelly proposed that they should go a little way farther, and come out on the river bank. Harry would be coming up about this time with his fare of fish, if he had had good luck. It would be fun to shout to him as he went by.

They pushed on together through the open pasture, where the sweet-fern and bayberry bushes grew tall and thick; there was another strip of woods between them and the river, and just this side was a deserted house, which had not been lived in for many years and was gray and crumbling. The fields that belonged to it had been made part of a great sheep pasture, and two or three sheep were standing by the half-opened door, as if they were quite at home there in windy or wet weather. Betty had seen the old house before, and thought it was most picturesque. She now proposed that they should have a picnic party by and by, and make a fire in the old fireplace; but Nelly Foster thought there would be great danger of burning the house down.

"Suppose we go and look in?" pleaded Betty. "Mary Beck and I saw it not long after I came, but she thought it was going to rain, so that we didn't stop. I like to go into an empty old ruin, and make up stories about it, and wonder who used to live there. Don't stop to pick these blackberries; you know they aren't half ripe," she teased Nelly; and so they went over to the old house, frightening away the sheep as they crossed the doorstep boldly. It was all in ruins; the roof was broken about the chimney, so that the sun shone through upon the floor, and the light-red bricks were softened and sifting down. In one corner there was a heap of withes for mending fences, which had been pulled about by the sheep, and there were some mud nests of swallows high against the walls, but the birds seemed to have already left them. This room had been the kitchen, and behind it was a dark, small place which must have been a bedroom when people lived there, dismal as it looked now.

"I am going to look in here and all about the place," said Betty cheerfully, and stepped in to see what she could find.

"Oh, go back, Nelly!" she screamed, in a great fright, the next moment; and they fled out of the house into the warm sunshine. They had had time to see that a man was lying on the floor as if he were dead. Betty's heart was beating so that she could hardly speak.

"We must get somebody to come," she panted, trying to stop Nelly. "Was it somebody dead?"

But Nelly sank down as pale as ashes into the sweet-fern bushes, and looked at her strangely. "Oh, Betty Leicester, it will kill mother, it will kill her! I believe it was my father; what shall I do?"

"Your father," faltered Betty,--"your father? We must go and tell." Then she remembered that he was a hunted man, a fugitive from justice.

They looked fearfully at the house; the sheep had come back and stood again near the doorway. There was something more horrible than the two girls had ever known in the silence of the place. It would have been less awful if there had been a face at the broken door or windows.

"Henry--we must try to stop Henry," said poor pale Nelly, and they hurried toward the river shore. They could not help looking anxiously behind them as they passed the belt of pine; a terrible fear possessed them as they ran. "He is afraid that somebody will see him. I wonder if he will come home to-night."

"He must be ill there," said Betty, but she did not dare to say anything else. What an unendurable thing to be afraid and ashamed of one's own father!

They looked down the river with eager eyes. Yes, there was Harry Foster's boat coming up slowly, with the three-cornered sail spread to catch the light breeze. Nelly gave a long sigh and sank down on the turf, and covered her face as she cried bitterly. Betty thought, with cowardly longing, of the quiet and safety of Aunt Mary's room, and the brown-covered volume of "Walton's Lives." Then she summoned all her courage. These two might never have sorer need of a friend than in this summer afternoon.

Henry Foster's boat sailed but slowly. It was heavily laden, and the wind was so light that from time to time he urged it with the oars. He did not see the two girls waiting on the bank until he was close to them, for the sun was in his eyes and his thoughts were busy. His father's escape from jail was worse than any sorrow yet; nobody knew what might come of it. Harry felt very old and careworn for a boy of seventeen. He had determined to go to see Miss Barbara Leicester that evening, and to talk over his troubles with her. He had been able to save a little money, and he feared that it might be demanded. He had already paid off the smaller debts that were owed in the village; but he knew his father too well not to be afraid of getting some menacing letters presently. If his father had only fled the country! But how could that be done without money? He would not work his passage; Harry was certain enough of that. Would it not be better to let him have the money and go to the farthest limit to which it could carry him?

Something made the young man shade his eyes with his hand and look toward the shore; then he took the oars and pulled quickly in. That was surely his sister Nelly, and the girl beside her, who wore a grayish dress with a white blouse waist, was Betty Leicester. It was just like kind-hearted little Betty to have teased poor Nelly out into the woods. He would carry them home in his boat; he could rub it clean with some handfuls of hemlock twigs or river grass. Then he saw how strangely they looked, as he pushed the boat in and pulled it far ashore. What in the world had happened?

Nelly tried to speak again and again, but her voice could not make itself heard. "Oh, don't cry any more, Nelly, dear," said Betty, trembling from head to foot, and very pale. "We went into the old house up there by the pasture, and found--Nelly said it was your father, and we thought he was very ill."

"I'll take you both home, then," said Harry Foster, speaking quickly and with a hard voice. "Get in, both of you,--this is the shortest way,--then I'll come back by myself."

"Oh, no, no!" sobbed Nelly. "He looked as if he were dying, Harry; he was lying on the floor. We will go, too; he couldn't hurt us, could he?" And the three turned back into the woods. Betty's heart almost failed her. She felt like a soldier going into battle. Oh, could she muster bravery enough to go into that house again? Yet she loved her father so much that doing this for another girl's father was a great comfort, in all her fear.

The young man hurried ahead when they came near the house, and it was only a few minutes before he reappeared.

"You must go and tell mother to come as quick as she can, and hurry to find the doctor and tell him; he will know what to do. Father has been dreadfully hurt somehow. Perhaps Miss Leicester will let Jonathan come to help us get him home." Harry Foster's face looked old and strange; he never would seem like a boy any more, Betty thought, with a heart full of sympathy. She hurried away with Nelly; they could not bring help fast enough.

* * * * *

After the great excitement was over, Betty felt very tired and unhappy. That night she could be comforted only by Aunt Barbara's taking her into her own bed, and being more affectionate and sympathetic than ever before, even talking late, like a girl, about the Out-of-Door Club plans. In spite of this attempt to return to every-day thoughts, Betty waked next morning to much annoyance and trouble. She felt as if the sad affairs of yesterday related only to the poor Fosters and herself, but as she went down the street, early, she was stopped and questioned by eager groups of people who were trying to find out something more about the discovery of Mr. Foster in the old house. It proved that he had leaped from a high window, hurting himself badly by the fall, when he made his escape from prison, and that he had been wandering in the woods for days. The officers had come at once, and there was a group of men outside the Fosters' house. This had a terrible look to Betty. Everybody said that the doctor believed there was only a slight chance for Mr. Foster's life, and that they were not going to try to take him back to jail. He had been delirious all night. One or two kindly disposed persons said that they pitied his poor family more than ever, but most of the neighbors insisted that "it served Foster just right." Betty did her errand as quickly as possible, and hastily brushed by some curious friends who tried to detain her. She felt as if it were unkind and disloyal to speak of her neighbor's trouble to everybody, and the excitement and public concern of the little village astonished her very much. She did not know, until then, how the joy or trouble of one home could affect the town as if it were one household. Everybody spoke very kindly to her, and most people called her "Betty," and seemed to know her very well, whether they had ever spoken to her before or not. The women were standing at their front doors or their gates, to hear whatever could be told, and our friend looked down the long street and felt that it was like running the gauntlet to get home again. Just then she met the doctor, looking gray and troubled, as if he had been awake all night, but when he saw Betty his face brightened.

"Well done, my little lady," he said, in a cheerful voice, which made her feel steady again, and then he put his hand on Betty's shoulder and looked at her very kindly.

"Oh, doctor! may I walk along with you a little way?" she faltered. "Everybody asks me to tell"--

"Yes, yes, I know all about it," said the doctor; and he turned and took Betty's hand as if she were a child, and they walked away together. It was well known in Tideshead that Dr. Prince did not like to be questioned about his patients.

"I was wondering whether I ought to go to see Nelly," said Betty, as they came near the house. "I haven't seen her since I came home with her yesterday. I--didn't quite dare to go in as I came by."

"Wait until to-morrow, perhaps," said the doctor. "The poor man will be gone then, and you will be a greater comfort. Go over through the garden. You can climb the fences, I dare say," and he looked at Betty with a queer little smile. Perhaps he had seen her sometimes crossing the fields with Mary Beck.

"Do you mean that he is going to die to-day?" asked Betty, with great awe. "Ought I to go then?"

"Love may go where common kindness is shut out," said Dr. Prince. "You have done a great deal to make those poor children happy, this summer. They had been treated in a very narrow-minded way. It was not like Tideshead, I must say," he added, "but people are shy sometimes, and Mrs. Foster herself could not bear to see the pity in her neighbors' faces. It will be easier for her now."

"I keep thinking, what if it were my own papa?" said Betty softly. "He couldn't be so wicked, but he might be ill, and I not there."

"Dear me, no!" said the doctor heartily, and giving Betty's hand a tight grasp and a little swing to and fro. "I suppose he's having a capital good time up among his glaciers. I wish that I were with him for a month's holiday;" and at this Betty was quite cheerful again.

Now they stopped at Betty's own gate. "You must take your Aunt Mary in hand a little, before you go away. There's nothing serious the matter now, only lack of exercise and thinking too much about herself."

"She did come to my tea-party in the garden," responded Betty, with a faint smile, "and I think sometimes she almost gets enough courage to go to walk. She didn't sleep at all last night, Serena said this morning."

"You see, she doesn't need sleep," explained Dr. Prince, quite professionally. "We are all made to run about the world and to work. Your aunt is always making blood and muscle with such a good appetite, and then she never uses them, and nature is clever at revenges. Let her hunt the fields, as you do, and she would sleep like a top. I call it a disease of _too-wellness_, and I only know how to doctor sick people. Now there's a lesson for you to reflect upon," and the busy doctor went hurrying back to where he had left his horse standing, when he first caught sight of Betty's white and anxious face.

As she entered the house Aunt Barbara was just coming out. "I am going to see poor Mrs. Foster, my dear, or to ask for her at the door," she said, and Serena and Letty and Jonathan all came forward to ask whether Betty knew any later news. Seth Pond had been loitering up the street most of the morning, with feelings of great excitement, but he presently came back with instructions from Aunt Barbara to weed the long box-borders behind the house, which he somewhat unwillingly obeyed.

A few days later the excitement was at an end, the sad funeral was over, and on Sunday the Fosters were at church in their appealing black clothes. Everybody had been as kind as they knew how to be, but there were no faces so welcome to the sad family as our little Betty's and the doctor's.

"It comes of simply following her instinct to be kind and do right," said the doctor to Aunt Barbara, next day. "The child doesn't think twice about it, as most of us do. We Tideshead people are terribly afraid of one another, and have to go through just so much before we can take the next step. There's no way to get right things done but to simply _do_ them. But it isn't so much what your Betty does as what she is."

"She has grown into my old heart," said Aunt Barbara. "I cannot bear to think of her going away and taking the sunshine with her!--and yet she has her faults, of course," added the sensible old lady.

"Oh, by the way!" said Dr. Prince, turning back. "My wife told me to ask you to come over to tea to-night and bring the little girl; I nearly forgot to give the message."

"I shall be very happy to come," answered Miss Leicester, and the doctor nodded and went his busy way. Betty was very fond of going to drive with him, and he looked about the neighborhood as he drove along, hoping to catch sight of her; but Betty was at that moment deeply engaged in helping Letty shell some peas for dinner, at the other side of the house, in the garden doorway of the kitchen. She had spent an hour before that with Mrs. Beck, while they tried together with more or less success to trim a new sailor hat for Mary Beck like one of Betty's own. Mrs. Beck was as friendly as possible in these days, but whenever the Fosters were mentioned her face grew dark. She did not like Mrs. Foster; she did not exactly blame her for all that had happened, but she did not pity her either, or feel a true compassion for such a troubled neighbor. Betty never could understand it. At any rate, she had been saved by her unsettled life from taking a great interest in her own or other people's dislikes.

That evening, just as the tea-party was in full progress, somebody came for Dr. Prince; and when he returned from his study he announced that he must go at once down the river road to see one of his patients who was worse. Perhaps he saw an eager look in Betty's eyes, for he asked gravely if Miss Leicester had a niece to lend, it being a moonlight evening and not too long a drive. Aunt Barbara made no objection, and our friend went skipping off to the doctor's stable in high glee.

"Oh, that's nice!" she exclaimed. "I'm so glad that you're going to take Pepper; she's such a dear little horse."

"Pepper is getting old," said the doctor, "but she really likes to go out in the evening. You can see how fast she will scurry home. Get me a whip from the rack, will you, child? I am anxious to be off."

Mrs. Prince and Aunt Barbara were busy talking in the parlor, and were taking great pleasure in their social occasion, but Betty was so glad that she need not stay to listen, instead of going down the town street and out among the quiet farms behind brisk old Pepper. The wise, kind doctor at her side was silent as he thought about his patient, yet he felt much pleasure in Betty's companionship. They could smell the new marsh hay and hear the tree-toads; it was a most beautiful summer night. Betty felt very grateful and happy, she did not exactly know why; it was not altogether the effect of Mrs. Prince's tea and cakes, or even because she was driving with the doctor, but the restlessness and uncertainty that make so great a part of a girl's life seemed to have gone away out of her heart. Instead of the excitement there was a pleasant quietness and sense of security, no matter what might be going to happen.

Presently the doctor appeared to have thought enough about his patient. "You don't feel chilly, do you?" he asked kindly. "I find it damp and cold, sometimes, after a hot day, crossing this low land."

"Oh, no, I'm as warm as toast," answered Betty. "Whom are you going to see, Dr. Prince? Old Mr. Duff?"

"No, he is out-of-doors again. I saw him in the hayfield this morning. You haven't been keeping up with my practice as well as usual, of late," said the doctor, laughing a little. "I am going to see a girl about your own age. I am afraid that I am going to lose her, too."

"Is it that pretty Lizzie Edwards who sits behind the Becks' pew? I heard that she had a fever. I saw her the last Sunday that she was at church." Betty's heart was filled with dismay, and the doctor did not speak again. They were near the house now, and could see some lights flitting about; and as they stopped the sick girl's father stole silently from behind the bushes and began to fasten the horse, so that Dr. Prince could go in directly. Betty could hear the ominous word "_sinking_," as they whispered together; then she was left alone. It seemed so sad that this other girl should be near the door of death, and so close to the great change that must come to every one. Betty had never known so direct a consciousness of the inevitableness of death, but she was full of life herself, and so eager and ready for whatever might be coming. What if this other girl had felt so, too? She watched the upper windows where the dim light shone, and now and then a shadow crossed the curtain. Everything out-of-doors was quiet and sweet; the moon went higher and higher, and the wind rustled among the apple-trees. Some white petunias in a little plot near by looked strangely white, and Betty thought that perhaps the other girl had planted them, and there they were growing on. Now she was going to die. Betty wondered what it would be like, and if the other girl knew, and if she minded so very much. After a few minutes she found herself saying an eager prayer that the doctor might still cure her, and keep her alive. If she must die, Betty hoped that she herself might do some of the things that Lizzie Edwards would have done, and take her place. When old people had to go, who had done all they wished to do, and got tired, and could not help thinking about having a new life, that was one thing; but to go now and leave all your hopes and plans behind,--indeed, it seemed too hard. But Betty had a sense of the difference between what things could be helped and what were in God's hands, and when she had said her prayer she waited again hopefully for a long time in the moonlight.

At last there seemed to be more movement in the house and she could hear voices; then she heard somebody sobbing, and the light in the upper room went quickly out.

The doctor came after a few minutes more, which seemed very long and miserable. Pepper had fallen asleep, good old horse! and Betty did not dare to ask any questions.

"Well, well," said the doctor, in a surprisingly cheerful voice, "I forgot all about you, Miss Betty Leicester. I hope that you're not cold this time, and I don't know what the aunts will have to say about us; it is nearly eleven o'clock."

"I'm not cold, but I did get frightened," acknowledged Betty faintly; then she felt surprisingly light-hearted. Dr. Prince could not be in such good spirits if he had just seen his poor young patient die!

"We got here just in time," he said, tucking the light blanket closer about Betty. "We've pulled the child through, but she was almost gone when I first saw her; there was just a spark of life left,--a spark of life," repeated the doctor.

"Who was it crying?" Betty asked.

"The mother," said the doctor. "I had just told her that she was going to keep the little girl. Why, here's a good sound sassafras lozenge in my pocket. Now we'll have a handsome entertainment."

Betty, who had just felt as if she were going to cry for nobody knew how long, began to laugh instead, as Dr. Prince broke his unexpected lozenge into honest halves and presented her solemnly with one of them. There was never such a good sassafras lozenge before or since, and Pepper trotted steadily home to her stall and the last end of her supper. "Only think, if the doctor hadn't known just what to do," said Betty later to Aunt Barbara, "and how he goes all the time to people's houses! Every day we see him going by to do things to help people. This might have been a freezing, blowing night, and he would have gone just the same."

"Dear child, run up to your bed now," said Aunt Barbara, kissing her good-night; for Betty was very wide awake, and still had so many things to say. She never would forget that drive at night. She had been taught a great lesson of the good doctor's helpfulness, but Aunt Barbara had learned it long ago. _

Read next: Chapter 14. The Out-Of-Door Club

Read previous: Chapter 12. Betty At Home

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