“No, I’m not coming down with anything,” she said lightly, “but I’m going up to something, and that’s my bed. I believe I’m sleepy.”
Before she climbed the stairs, she went out into the kitchen to be sure that the speckled chicken was comfortable. As she touched the basket he answered with a soft, comfortable sound like the coo of a baby, or the chirp of a sleepy little bird, the sound that speaks of warmth and contentment. Peggy stood beside the basket thinking.
“There! I knew something was wrong.” Amy had followed her friend out into the kitchen. “You’re crying over that chicken. Why, you silly Peg!”
But Amy had misinterpreted the moist eyes. That little contented sound from the basket back of the stove had brought a message to Peggy. She had made the chicken comfortable in spite of its unnatural mother. She had rekindled ambition in Lucy’s heart in spite of her thieving brother. All at once Peggy understood that the compensation for insight is the joy of helpfulness. It was not meant for any heart to bear the burden of earth’s grief, but only to lighten it as one can, and be glad.
And so, after all, Peggy went up to bed comforted.
CHAPTER XIII
A BENEFIT PERFORMANCE
Peggy had a bright idea. Any one familiar with the Peggy disposition would have guessed as much from a number of infallible signs. There were periods of abstraction, characterized by long silences or random replies. There were thoughtful little frowns, and sudden dimpling smiles, all for no reason apparent. And when Peggy reached the point of saying to herself in a confidential undertone, “There! That’s just the thing!” speculation ran riot in Dolittle Cottage.
But though the guessing was both varied and ingenious, it was all wide of the mark. The announcement of Peggy’s project at the breakfast-table one morning took everybody by surprise. “Look here, girls,” began Peggy, betraying a degree of nervous excitement in her reckless salting of her scrambled eggs, “what would you think of our giving a benefit performance?”
“Performance of what?” asked half the table. And the other half wanted to know, “Whose benefit?” Peggy answered the last question first.