“Come up-stairs,” she said in a whisper, “and I’ll show you my leg.”
“Your leg?” Mrs. Loomis began to look alarmed, and led Jessie up-stairs. “My dear child,” she said when they had entered Jessie’s little room, “what has happened?”
“It wasn’t my fault, indeed it wasn’t,” began Jessie trying to be brave, but now that she was in the safe harbor of her mother’s arms, feeling that she could not keep back the tears. “I tried to make Adele stop, and not go out of sight, but she just would and would go further and further. She was bent and determined to go as far as she could, and I was afraid to let her go off by herself, and yet I knew it wasn’t right for us to be driving out of sight. I truly didn’t know what to do, mother. She wouldn’t let me drive nor get out nor anything and she wouldn’t go back, so all I could do was to sit still. Then she drove bias across the railroad truck, and the wheel caught, and we were tipped out. I fell down into some bushes and got an awful bruise. Just see.” She displayed a large black and blue surface to her mother.
“Why, you poor child, that certainly is a bruise. I must bathe it after a while. But now go on with your story.” Mrs. Loomis’s hands trembled as she held Jessie closer.
“Then,” continued the little girl, “when I came to my senses I didn’t see Adele at first, but I saw Dapple Gray standing quite still by the railroad track. A cart-wheel was off and the cart was tipped down the bank. But wasn’t Dapple Gray good not to move?”
“He was indeed, but oh, my little daughter, I dare not think what might have happened. Suppose a train had been coming along.”
“One did whistle. It was a freight train, I think, but it must have passed before we got there. Well, I picked myself up and found Adele sitting there crying about her arm. She has broken it, mother, but we didn’t know it then and there wasn’t any house nearer than Ezra’s so I went there.” She hesitated for a moment before going on. “It was so much nearer not to go across the foot-bridge, so I went the other way.”
“Oh, Jessie!” Mrs. Loomis turned pale.
“Yes, I did. I knew that perhaps I ought not, but it would save time, you see. I did get awfully dizzy just in the middle, but I shut my eyes and said,
“‘God shall charge His angel legions