Her brother Johnnie was very ill; he was six years old, just two years younger than herself; but he was much smaller, being a tiny cripple. Next to her mother Kitty loved him more than anybody in the whole world.
All through those “dreadful” nine days she had not been allowed to see him. She had many times knelt outside his door, and listened to his feeble moan, but she had not been permitted to enter his room.
That morning she had asked the doctor if she could see Johnnie, as it was Christmas Eve. The doctor had shaken his head and patted her hair. “He must not be excited; he is still very ill. If he gets better after to-night—then—perhaps!” he said.
She had overheard what he whispered to Nurse. “To-night will decide; if he pulls through to-night.”
All day Kitty had thought of those words.
“To-night, if he pulls through to-night.” What did they mean? did they mean that Johnnie might die to-night?
She had waited outside Johnnie’s room; but her mother had said, “No; you cannot go in;” and Nurse had said, “You will make Johnnie worse if you stand about, and he hears your step.”
Kitty’s heart was full of misery. “It was unkind not to let me in to see Johnnie,” she said again and again to herself. She loved him so much! She loved him so much! Then there was a “dreadful” reason why his illness was worse for her to bear than for any one else. Kitty remembered that ten days ago there had been a snow-storm; when the snow had ceased she had gone out and made snowballs in the garden, and she had asked her mother if Johnnie might come out and make snow-balls also.
“On no account,” her mother had answered; “Johnnie is weak; if he caught a cold it would be very bad for him.”
Kitty remembered how the next morning she had gone into the meadow leading out of the garden. There the gardener had helped her to make a snow-man; and they had put a pipe into his mouth. She had danced around the snow-man, and she had longed for Johnnie to see it.