CHAPTER XV
HOSPITAL DAYS
It was on a cold April morning that Mrs. Stickney awoke feeling very ill. The exertion of dressing increased her distress, and after rousing Blue she lay down again.
He kindled the fire, filled the teakettle, and dressed Doodles.
“I don’t see why I should be sick,” she worried. “I was well enough last night when I went to bed. I cannot go to the shop if this pain doesn’t let up.”
“You’ll feel better when you’ve had some breakfast,” Blue told her cheerfully; but her reply was a sudden wince, and only with a mighty effort did she keep from groaning aloud.
The boy had so often assisted about the meals that he worked without awkwardness or delay, and presently he had a slice of toast delicately browned and the tea simmering fragrantly. Yet Mrs. Stickney could not eat; she leaned back in her rocker, white with suffering.
Remedy after remedy was of no avail, and finally Blue ran down to ask Granny O’Donnell what should be done.
Granny limped upstairs at once, and soon coaxed the sick woman to sip a steaming herb drink, one of her favorite cure-alls.
“It seems as if I did feel a little easier,” was the verdict at school time; so Blue went whistling down the street in the belief that his mother would speedily recover.
At noon, however, he opened the kitchen door on a sorrowful group, Granny, Mrs. Jimmy George, and Doodles. Granny was anxiously endeavoring to be calm, but the other two were weeping openly. Evangeline, in her mother’s arms, unnoticed in the strain of the moment, was blissfully engaged in the forbidden delight of pulling down her mother’s hair.