The Little Colonel's Holidays

by Annie F. Johnston

"Job didn't do that way," said Betty, soberly, as she looked up from lacing her shoes. "They didn't have any clocks in those days, and besides, patience isn't just sitting still all day without fidgeting. It's putting up with whatever happens to you, without making a fuss about it. The best way to do it is not to think about it any more than you can help."

"I'd like to know how I'm goin' to keep from thinkin' about my bruises and cuts," groaned the Little Colonel, limping stiffly across the room to look again in the little mirror, at her bandaged forehead, her scratched cheek, and her temple, criss-crossed with strips of court-plaster. "What would Papa Jack say if he could see me now?"

She repeated Betty's definition of patience to her reflection in the mirror, making a wry face as she did so. "'Puttin' up with whatevah happens to you, without makin' a fuss about it.' Well, I'll try, but it's mighty hard to do when one of the happenings is fallin' through a trap-doah, and gettin' as stiff and soah as I am."

She thought about the definition more than once during the long morning that followed; when the hash was too salty at breakfast, and the oatmeal was scorched; when Betty was busy in the spring-house, and she was left all alone for awhile with nothing to entertain herself with but the almanac and a week-old paper. The thunder, that had been only a low muttering over the distant hills when they awoke, was coming nearer, and the damp air was heavy with the approaching storm.

"I'll have one little run out-of-doahs befo' it begins to rain," thought Lloyd, and started up to skip across the porch; but her skipping changed to a painful walk as her aching muscles reminded her of her fall, and she limped slowly down the lane toward the gate.

A strong wind suddenly began lashing the cherry-trees that lined the lane, and sent a gust of dust and leaves into her face. She stopped a moment to rub her eyes, and as she did so something fluttering on the hedge-row broke loose from the thorns that held it, and came blowing toward her. It was something soft and gray, and it fluttered along uncertainly, like a bit of fleecy thistledown, as the wind bore it to her feet.

"Oh, it's mothah's gray veil!" she exclaimed. "It was on the back of the seat when she waved good-bye to me, and they were drivin' so fast it must have blown away."

She picked up the dainty piece of silk tissue, soft and filmy as a cloud, and held it against her cheek. Then she hurried into the house with it, lest some of the boys should see her and notice the tears in her eyes. But inside the dark closet, where she climbed to lay the veil on a shelf, the lonely feeling was too strong for her to overcome. Crouching down in a corner, with her face hidden in the soft violet-scented veil, she cried quietly for a long time.

Then something came to her mind that had happened when she was only five years old, before she had gone to Locust to live. It was that first lonesome evening when she had been left to spend the night at her grandfather's, and she grew so homesick as twilight fell that she decided to run away. And while she stood with her hand on the latch of the great gate, peering through the bars at the darkening world outside, Fritz (the wisest little terrier that ever peeped through tangled bangs) found something in the dead leaves at her feet. It was a little gray glove that her mother had dropped, when she stooped to kiss her good-bye. Lloyd remembered how she had squeezed it, and cried over it, and fondled it as if it held the touch of her mother's hand, and then, baby though she was, she had tucked it into her tiny apron pocket as a talisman to help her be brave. Then she walked back to the house without another tear.