Even now I hurry over the telling. The treasure-chest was of green pine boards. The contents were so strongly impregnated with turpentine that not a morsel was eatable. The weest pickaninny spat it out and squalled because the turpentine burned his tongue.
I could dwell tearfully—possibly profitably—upon the moral of the adventure, had I not left Lucy Bray all this time on my mother's lap, and myself fingering the oiled calico in covetous admiration.
"Mother," I said, "I wish, next time you go to Richmond, you would buy me a frock like this. Don't you think it is pretty?"
"Very pretty, Molly. But I do not like to have you wear cotton in the winter. I am afraid you might catch fire. Haven't you a worsted frock that you can put on to-morrow, Lucy? It would be safer while you children are up here so much alone."
Lucy was an old-fashioned little body from being the only child for so long and being so much with her mother. Instead of answering directly, she stopped to think, a pucker drawn between her brows with the effort.
"I don't believe I have, Cousin Mary," she said slowly. "'Most all my best clothes are packed up, and the trunks are in the wagon. We didn't mean to stay here more than two days, you know. It wouldn't be worth while to unpack the trunks, I s'pose? Mamma will be well enough to go on to Ohio pretty soon, won't she?"
"I hope so, dear."
My mother drew her up to her and kissed the brown head. She, too, was thoughtful. I supposed that she was wondering if she would better unpack those trunks. I was not glad that Cousin Mary Bray was sick, but I was in no hurry for her to get well enough to travel. I had never had another visitor whose ways of playing suited me as well as Lucy's. She was a year older than I, and a year younger than Mary 'Liza, and she got along beautifully with both of us. Then there was her cat, Alexander the Great, that she was taking to Ohio with her. He was the biggest cat any of us had ever known, with a coat of the longest, softest fur you can imagine, all pure gray, without a white or black hair on him, and he had lots of fun and sense. Mary 'Liza wanted, at first, to make believe that he was a hungry wolf, but Lucy would not hear of it until I proposed he should be a tame wolf we had taken when he was a baby and trained to defend us. He really seemed to understand what was expected of him, and when we lay down in the feather-bed and huddled close together under the covers, and whispered, as the wind screamed around the corners of the house:—
"There they are again! Don't you s'pose they'll be afraid of the fire? Wolves always are, you know,"—and Lucy would answer:—
"Faithful Alexander will take care of us."