“Too late to save yourself now,” said Hannah. “Go ahead and get it over, and then we’ll get even with Dr. Helen some way for playing us such a mischievous trick. Good-by. I have to go down town for mine.”
Dr. Helen from her window watched them separate, and smiled. A few minutes later Bert appeared, looking for some one to amuse him.
The doctor told him of the malady that had seized her maidens, and of their quest for healing.
“It’s an epidemic,” said Bert solemnly. “I’ve got it bad, and I saw Arch an hour ago, and he was so low he couldn’t even smile. Said he was going to cut out paper dolls or string buttons, if this kept up. Can’t you prescribe for us, Doctor?”
“Why, yes. Get Archie and bring him up here to supper this evening. Tell him he needn’t smile. Perhaps my ladies-errant may have stories to tell that will ease your pain a little!”
Bert joyfully undertook to bring Archie, and set 228 off at once while Dr. Helen gave Inga instructions for an especially festive supper, and with her own hands prepared a frozen dessert.
The four girls, who had barely slept apart in the week since Alice’s arrival, were now walking along widely separate paths, each one feeling oddly alone, and yet not wholly disliking the sensation. Catherine, well-used to her mother’s ways and beliefs, smiled to herself as she went off to tell stories and play cat’s cradle with the washerwoman’s little girl, who had a “spine” and had to be “kep’ quiet with high epidemics somethin’ fierce.”
“It’s just like Mother,” she thought. “She knew I was peevish and really needed to be alone. Just as she used to send me to my ‘boudoir’ to pout by myself when I was little. The hours with the girls seem so precious that I can’t bear to lose one, but I suppose I did need to be alone. You know, Mr. Squirrel, or Mr. Oakkitten, as Frieda would call you, what George Herbert said:
‘By all means use sometimes to be alone.
Salute thyself: see what thy soul doth wear.’
“You needn’t scamper away up the tree so fast. I’m not going to stay round here long enough to interfere with your looking over your spiritual wardrobe. I wonder if your soul wears soft gray fur?” And the story-teller walked quickly on through the woods, chanting to herself: “Old world, 229 how beautiful thou art!” and planning for an unusually effective dénouement for the tale of the Three Little Pigs.