Judge my delight to catch the sound of wheels along the road. I raced down to the gate to meet nurse and see all the wonders from town. Grandpa was not with her, and she came up the little path swinging her basket blithely.
"They knew the book at once, and I've got it—'tis by a man called Dickens. Your grandpa and mamma will come to-morrow and read it. They're giving a grand party to-night. Such a power of flowers and jellies and things. But the pipes I've brought Stevie in dozens and gingerbread-nuts galore."
Then her eye fell upon the blinded windows, and the colour flew from her blooming rustic face. She was nearly as white as Stevie inside. She flung away her basket, and the pipes, the book, and cakes rolled out on the gravel, to my amazement. More wonderful still, she broke out in wild guttural sounds and whirled around in a dance of madness.
I had never seen a grown person behave so oddly, and it enchanted me. I caught her skirt and began to spin round too in an ecstasy of shrill sympathy. She looked down at me in a queer wild way, as if she had never seen me before and resented my kindness, and then she cast me from her with such unexpected force that I fell among the flower-beds, too astounded to cry. Decidedly, grown-up people, I reflected, are hard to understand.
I had given up wondering at all the unusual things that happened the rest of that day. People kept coming and going, and spoke softly, often weeping. Nobody paid the least attention to me, though I repeatedly asserted that I was hungry. Then at last a comparative stranger took me into the kitchen, and made me a bowl of bread and milk. She forgot the sugar, and I was very angry. Big people often do forget the essential in a thoughtless way.
Men, too, came pouring in, and talked in undertones, looking at me as if I had been naughty. I resented those looks quite as much as the unwonted neglect of my small person, and was cheered, just upon the point of tears, by the appearance of Mary Jane, who invited me to go home and sleep with her that night.
I did not object. I never objected to any fresh excitement, and I was fond of Mary Jane's brindled cat. But why did Mary Jane cry over me and treat me as a prisoner all next day? She managed to keep me distracted in spite of her tears, and I slept a second night with the brindled cat in my arms, quite happy.
The second day of imprisonment did not pass so well. I was restless, and wanted to see Stevie again. I wanted several things that nobody seemed to understand, and I moped in a corner and wept, miserable and misunderstood. On the morning of the third day I could bear my lot no longer. I scorned Mary Jane's hollow friendship, and ran away without hat or jacket.
Outside nurse's gate knots of villagers were gathered in their best clothes. It looked like Sunday. I ran past them and shot in through the open hall-door. Nobody saw me, and I made straight for Stevie's room, which he never left before noon. I felt a rogue, and smiled in pleased recognition of the fact. How glad Stevie would be to see me!
The door was ajar, and I entered cautiously. On Stevie's bed I saw a long queer box with a lid laid beside it, and there was quite a quantity of flowers, and tapers were lit upon a table beside the bed. Was Stevie going away? But what use were candles when the sun was shining as brightly as possible?