Octave herself helped them to forget. The same exuberance of life that carried her into one scrape after another, served to sustain her under any trial. A night’s rest set her nerves all straight, and her healthy body suffered less than another’s might have done. So long as she obeyed orders and lay perfectly still, she was comparatively free from pain, and she had not been crippled for a day before she began making plans for her own comfort and that of every one else.
“Now, you see, Aunt Ruth, that there is no use in having this pretty room of yours all in a muddle, as it is sure to be if I stay in it; besides, grandma doesn’t get her nap as she ought to do with me so close to her room, and all the ‘pickles’ running in and out, as they do. Just you have my cot rolled into Melville’s sitting-room, and I’ll stay there days. Nights I can sleep in that funny little hall outside of it, which I think is the prettiest place in the whole house. Then, you see, the one who takes care of Melville, or hears him grumble, will have to hear me too,—lump it.”
“Thee doesn’t know Melville as well as I do, dear Octave, or thee would never propose such an arrangement as that.”
“Pooh!—I don’t mean that for you, Aunt Ruth, but for him! If you all treated his royal highness to a little more ‘pooh!’ and a little less ‘please!’ he’d be a more self-respecting boy. Try it, anyhow, won’t you? I can’t hurt him very much, now I’ve got myself tied down to this bed of roses. Try it, and I’ll lose my guess if I don’t do him good.”
Ruth laughed. Octave’s cheeriness surprised and greatly pleased her. Not even illness seemed to affect the merry girl’s spirit, and she was quite inclined to accept her proposition. The more so as Grandmother Kinsolving was the idol of her daughter’s heart, and Octave had hit the nail very squarely on the head in saying that the old lady’s rest would of necessity be greatly lessened by having Ruth’s adjoining room occupied “as a hospital.” Mother Amy was frail at the best; and, before these Pickels came, her health had been the one anxiety and care of the young housekeeper.
“Thee is a thoughtful child, Octave. I am half-minded to give thy notion a trial.”
The injured girl’s face brightened still more. “I did not know that you ever had a ‘half-mind,’ Aunt Ruthy. You look always decided enough to have a great, big, sound, and whole one, with a few ‘pieces’ to spare. Well, let’s get ‘Abry-ham’ and I’ll ‘beard the lion,’ and all the rest of it.”
“We will hope that ‘all the rest of it’ will not prove too much for even thy daring soul,” replied Aunt Ruth gaily; and as she passed out of the room she paused to give her charge a quiet kiss. This demonstration was rare with the aunt, and little Fritz alone of all his family would not have found it so. Because it was so unusual it was all the more appreciated by its recipient, and Octave banished the last regret she had felt; for, gay as she was, and little as she acknowledged it, there was an unselfishness in her proposal which even Aunt Ruth did not suspect. It was seldom that Octave appeared to think of herself; but no one had ever observed that this was from any principle. It had rather seemed that the child never had time. She was always flying from one project to another, gay as a bird, and apparently as thoughtless. She certainly was the last one of all the young people whom her aunt, or any other, would have selected as likely to do the peculiar Melville any good.
“Abry-ham” came promptly, glad to be of use. His fatherly heart had been touched by the heroism with which Octave bore the setting of her broken bones and injured muscles; and even before that he had been won by the frank friendliness of the “young lady,” who was said to be a very rich person as far as money went.
Now, there is nothing that the uncultured mind so greatly regards as money; and the airs which Paula manifested were accepted as natural and appertaining to her station in life. If he had thought about the matter at all, Abraham would have considered that he should have done the same as Paula did under similar circumstances; but, even so, he found Octave’s simpler ways and equality of manner preferable. He would never stand in awe of her as he did of her elder sister, but he would do what was far better,—he would love her.