She put a hand on each of his wrists, and made a shift to smile. “That’s nonsense,” she said, and tried to pull his hands down. “You’re gettin’ too strong for your poor old mother to keep you in order!”
But she brightened, always, when Mr. Butson came in the evening; though Mr. Butson’s conversation scarce seemed of so inspiriting a character as to account wholly for the change. Still, it interested her. It was mostly about his grievances at the hands of the world; and Nan May was a ready sympathiser.
It was very near to the day (at last fixed) for the excursion, when Bessy woke in the night at the striking of a match. Her mother was lighting a candle, her back toward the bed. She took the candle and passed out, into Johnny’s room at the back. Bessy listened, but she heard no talk; heard nothing, indeed, but Johnny’s heavy breathing, so still was the night. Presently her mother returned, and stood over her, still with the candle; gazing on her face, it seemed to Bessy—as well as she could see through her half-closed eyes—much as she had gazed when she paused in her needlework, though now her cheeks were wet with tears. With that Bessy opened wide her eyes, and “Mother!” she said. “What’s the matter? Are you ill?”
Nan May turned and blew out the light. “No, Bess, no; I’m all right,” she said, and crept into bed. “It’s not—not much. I woke up, that’s all—with a bad dream.” She kissed the girl, and put her arm about her neck. “You’ve always been a good girl, Bessy,” she went on. “You wouldn’t turn against me, would you?”
“Why no, mother! But—”
“Not whatever happened?”
“No—of course not,” she kissed her mother again. “But why?”
“It’s nothing. Only the dream—just the dream, Bess. Go to sleep.”
XIX.
The longed-for holiday came with a fine Monday morning, and Bessy, in a muslin frock that her mother had helped to make for the occasion, was impatient, an hour too soon, because Johnny lingered in bed; enjoying the luxury of “losing a quarter” without paying the penalty.