CHAPTER VI
Miss Marilla tiptoed softly up the hall, and listened at the door of the spare bedroom. It was time her soldier-boy woke up and had some dinner. She had a beautiful little treat for him to-day, chicken broth with rice, and some little bits of tender breast-meat on toast, with a quivering spoonful of currant jelly.
It was very still in the spare room, so still that a falling coal from the grate of the Franklin heater made a hollow sound when it fell into the pan below. If the boy was asleep, she could usually tell by his regular breathing; but, though she listened with a keen ear, she could not hear it to-day. Perhaps he was awake, sitting up. She pushed the door open, and looked in. Why! The bed was empty! She glanced around the room, and it was empty too!
She passed her hand across her eyes as if they had deceived her, and went over to look at the bed. Surely he must be there somewhere! And then she saw the note.
“Dear wonderful little mother!”
Her eyes were too blurred with quick tears and apprehension to read any further. “Mother!” He had called her that. She could never feel quite alone in the world again. But where was he? She took the corner of her white apron, and wiped the tears away vigorously to finish the note. Then, without pausing to think, and even in the midst of her great gasp of apprehension, she turned swiftly, and went down-stairs, out the front door, across the frozen lawn, and through the hedge to Mary Amber’s house.
“Mary! Mary Amber!” she called as she panted up the steps, the note grasped tightly in her trembling hand. She hoped, oh, she hoped Mary Amber’s mother would not come to the door and ask questions. Mary’s mother was so sensible, and Miss Marilla always felt as if Mrs. Amber disapproved of her just a little whenever she was doing anything for anybody. Not that Mary Ambers’ mother was not kind herself to people, but she was always so very sensible in her kindness, and did things in the regular way, and wasn’t impulsive like Miss Marilla.
But Mary Amber herself came to the door, with pleasant forgetfulness of her old friend’s recent coolness, and tried to draw her into the hall. This Miss Marilla firmly declined, however. She threw her apron over her head and shoulders as a concession to Mary’s fears for her health, and broke out: