“Court-plaster,” said Polly, “and could you hurry?—for her thumb’s bleeding so.”
“Yes, yes, to be sure,” said the old lady, laying down her broom, and waddling to the cupboard. She brought a big cracked sugar-bowl to the table, then adjusted her spectacles, and diving down into the depths brought up paper after paper of herbs, salve, etc., till Polly thought she would go wild.
“Oh, I don’t believe you’ve got any,” she said.
“Yes, yes, I have, child; don’t be so fast; I remember where I put it; ’twan’t in this bowl, after all! I give some to Jane Dusenberry’s folks, when her pa got cut with a scythe. You know Jane?” And Grandma paused, and rested both hands on the bowl to relate the dreadful accident.
“Yes, yes,” said Polly, “but I can’t leave Phronsie. Oh, I can get it for you, if you’ll only tell me where it is.”
“Hadn’t you better run right home, and stay along of Phronsie, dear, and I’ll step over and bring it soon’s I get on my cap, and,” looking around the room, “get fixed up just a mite!” said the old lady.
“If you please, I must have it now,” said Polly, in utter dismay, who knew what Grandma’s “settling her cap,” and fixing up, meant.
So Mrs. Bascom finally produced a roll of ancient court-plaster out of some unseen drawer in the cupboard, the requisite amount was carefully cut off, and Polly bounded over to poor little Phronsie, whose supply of cake had given out, and who, consequently, as she sat curled up on the old chair, was surveying the poor little bandaged thumb ruefully.
The cut was soon nicely stuck together; her dirty little pink apron taken off; herself washed, and the tangled yellow curls all brushed and stroked by Polly’s kind hands. And then Polly began to look around. Her mother, she knew, wouldn’t be back until night. She had a chance to make some jackets for the minister’s boys, so she was at the parsonage for the day. Ben was chopping wood, one of the odd jobs he picked up now and then; he might be in any time, it only depended on the length of the job. Where Joel and David were, Polly, for the life of her, couldn’t have told. Their whereabouts were often shrouded in mystery. In the midst of it, just as Polly was saying, while she gave the last curl a brush, “There, dearie, you’re all right again; now I must get at my old stove, hateful thing!” the door opened and in walked Ben. “Oh, Ben!” she cried, and she almost burst into tears, “I’m so glad you’ve come!”
And Phronsie, with a most important air, began to announce, “I’ve cut my thumb, oh, and it bled; see, Bensie, see!” And the child held up the wounded little hand carefully wrapped up in a clean, old handkerchief.