Johnny nodded, gulping.
“Did something sting you?”
“Bee stung Johnny. Naughty bee!”
The girl stared at the small grimy hand in consternation. A bee sting! What did you do for a bee sting or any kind of 189 a sting for that matter? Mosquitoes—hamamelis. And where did the Gordons keep their hamamelis bottle?
Johnny’s screams, abated in expectation of relief, began to rise once more. He was angry. Why didn’t she do something? This delay was unendurable. His voice mounted in a long, piercing wail.
“Don’t cry,” the girl said nervously. “Don’t cry. Let’s go into the house and find something.”
Up-stairs and down she trailed the shrieking child. At the Cameron farm there were two hamamelis bottles, one in the bath-room, the other on a shelf in the kitchen. But nothing rewarded her search here. If only some one were at home! If only the telephone weren’t out of order! Desperately she took down the receiver, to be greeted by a faint, continuous buzzing. There was nothing for it; she must leave Johnny and run to a neighbor’s. But Johnny refused to be left. He 190 clung to her and kicked and screamed for pain and the terror of finding his secure baby world falling to pieces about his ears.
“It’s a shame, Johnny. I ought to know what to do, but I don’t. You come too, then.”
But Johnny refused to budge. He threw himself on his back on the veranda and beat the floor with his heels and wailed long heart-piercing wails that trembled into sobbing silence, only to begin all over with fresh vigor. Elliott was at her wits’ end. She didn’t dare go away and leave him; she was afraid he might kill himself crying. But mightn’t he do so if she stayed? He pushed her away when she tried to comfort him. There was only one thing that he wanted; he would have none of her, if she didn’t give it to him.
Never in her life had Elliott Cameron felt so insignificant, so helpless and futile, as she did at that minute. “Oh, you 191 poor baby!” she cried, and hated herself for her ignorance. Laura would have known what to do; Harriet Gordon would have known. Would nobody ever come?