“That isn’t true,” said Pauline. “I could have had plenty to eat if I had liked.”
“That means that if you were destitute of one little spark of spirit you’d have crawled back to the house to take your broken food on a cold plate like a dog. But what is the matter now? Hungry again?”
“No; it is my arm. Please don’t touch it.”
“Do look!” cried Amy Perkins. “Oh, Nancy, she has got an awful burn! There’s quite a hole through the sleeve of her dress. Oh, do see this great blister!”
“It was a bit of one of the squibs,” said Pauline. “It lit right on my arm and burned my muslin sleeve; but I don’t suppose it’s much hurt, only I feel a little faint.”
“Dear, dear!” said Nancy. “What is to be done now? I don’t know a thing about burns, or about any sort of illness. Shall we wake cook up? Perhaps she can tell us something.”
“Let’s put on a bandage,” said one of the other girls. “Then when you lie down in bed, Pauline, you will drop asleep and be all right in the morning.”
Pauline was so utterly weary that she was glad to creep into bed. Her arm was bandaged very unskilfully; nevertheless it felt slightly more comfortable. Presently she dropped into an uneasy doze; but from that doze she awoke soon after midnight, to hear Nancy snoring loudly by her side, to hear corresponding snores in a sort of chorus coming from the other end of the long room, and to observe also that there was not a chink of light anywhere; and, finally, to be all too terribly conscious of a great burning pain in her arm. That pain seemed to awaken poor Pauline’s slumbering conscience.
“Why did I come?” she said to herself. “I am a wretched, most miserable girl. And how am I ever to get back? I cannot climb into the beech-tree with this bad arm. Oh, how it does hurt me! I feel so sick and faint I scarcely care what happens.”