Miss Alling, seeing the state of affairs, herself perilously near the point of exhaustion, bound up their injuries, treated Burd’s swollen and painful ankle, and then packed them all off to bed.
For once they were all glad to obey her, and from then until long past dinner time that evening, they slept heavily, exhaustedly.
The rain which had proved their salvation continued to beat down soddenly, and when Jessie finally opened her eyes she thought they had never looked upon so dreary a prospect.
Through her window, she could see, from where she lay upon the bed, the blackened, ravaged trunks of what had once been monarchs of the forest. The smoke from wet embers still depressingly filled the air and the rain beat down with a steady, monotonously mournful sound.
Slowly the kaleidoscopic events of the day came back to her, and when she thought of Darry and realized that he was no longer in danger but safe with the boys in the cottage only a few feet away, her depression vanished magically and she ran into the other room to shake the still-sleeping Amy into wakefulness.
“Ouch, my arm hurts,” grumbled Amy, reluctantly opening one eye. “Oh, it’s you, Jess,” she added, showing a little more animation. “What do you want? Is the forest on fire again?”
At the word “fire,” Nell sat up with a start and a cry of alarm but, reassured by the sound of the storm, turned and smiled at the girls sheepishly.
“Listen!” Jessie commanded suddenly, as there came to her the sounds of footsteps without and the opening of the front door. “There are the boys, I guess.”
“They smelled the dinner cooking,” said Amy, still in a grumbling humor. “They never come near us unless they have something to gain by it.” They found the boys in high spirits, despite the fact that singed hair and eyebrows, an occasional bandaged hand or ear and Burd’s swollen and painful ankle made vivid reference to the perils of that day.
The girls were quick to sense beneath their hilarity an undercurrent of intense excitement.