But Paula would not. She had been a trifle touched by the soft tone in which this new aunt had said “dear little Paula,” but she was slower to forget resentment than to feel it. So she hurried forward alone, and made her way to the room where Christina was sleeping, in the refreshing rest which follows a simple supper and bedtime thoughts of sweet good-will.
Ruth went to Grandmother Capers, and found the old lady greatly shaken by the shock she had received. Surprising as it was, Margaret Capers persistently refused to accept Ruth’s plain and natural explanation of the affair, and reiterated her belief that she had really seen a spirit, whose visitation was intended as a warning of direful things to come.
From his room adjoining, Melville heard the discussion and terminated it in his own fashion: “Go to bed, grandma, and keep still! If, at your age, you want to be a fool, be one, and not bother other folks about it! As for you, Aunt Ruth, I wish you would get me a drink of fresh water out of the well, and take yourself off out of the way. I hate this night rowing! If you don’t get back to that side of the house pretty soon, some of the rest of your imps will be breaking loose! I’ll make grandmother get out of this!”
“Thee will, in a sense thee little understands, ungrateful boy!” replied his long-suffering aunt, after she had drawn and brought the water. “And I will ask thy permission to give thee a bedtime thought. If there are any ‘imps’ under this roof this night, they are locked up in thy own selfish heart. If thee is really a Kinsolving, see to it that thee treats that poor old woman in yonder with common decency. One of these nights thee will order her and she will not obey.” And with that for a good-night, the much tried young house-mistress took herself off.
Melville was sufficiently nervous to find sleep impossible for weary hours to come; and it is probable that the self-indulgent lad had never done a greater amount of thinking in a like space of time.
“Aunt Ruth has a way of saying things which cut; but they generally cut in the right place when she says them to other people! Did she mean it? Am I an ‘imp,’ myself? I suppose I don’t speak very respectfully to grandma, sometimes; but she is such a silly thing that she tries me awfully. And everybody knows I am an incurable invalid. It’s a pity I can’t talk as I please, when I am doomed to lie here like a log! I’d be a saint if I had that little imp Fritz’s legs and fists! How he did use them, though! And I couldn’t but admire the young monkey, in spite of my anger, he did so make me think of one of Abraham’s bantam roosters. Well, maybe some of the Pickels will be relishable; and if they are, I’ll try not to scare them away by crossness.”
From which soliloquy of Melville’s it will be seen that while the would-be reformers had all gone to bed in the truly missionary spirit, the sinner to be reconstructed was doing his own best to make his stubborn clay pliable to their touch. Also, that his threat of “getting out of this” was a threat merely, and not to be taken seriously.
CHAPTER VI.
Fritz, junior, slept soundly; but he had a child’s fashion of waking early. When he found the sunlight shining into his eyes through the window which, being unaccustomed to care for young folks, Aunt Ruth had forgotten to darken,—and thus insure her own undisturbed morning nap,—he sat up in bed and looked about him. He was perfectly wide awake on the instant, and the cheerfulness of the sunlight was scarcely greater than the clear light of the lad’s own happy nature.
“I was a dreadful bad boy, last night! I’m awful sorry I licked the crippler and—by jingo! I’ll go and tell him so!”