Mrs. Martin drew back her arm from Mary and pushed her out into the hall, then she went to stand by her husband. She would not leave him alone.
I heard every detail of this adventure a few minutes later, in the sitting room, and I was quite thrilled at this part where Mrs. Martin stood pushing her child out into the hall with one hand and extending the other to her husband.
He was afraid she would get hurt and, hurrying to her, was about to urge her to go upstairs when more thunder and lightning came.
The crashing and flashing were so dreadful that they made Daisy nestle anxiously against me in our cage. We had been awake for some time, listening to the unusual and strange sounds below.
All at once we heard Mr. Martin cry out, “Mary—run—he’s coming!”
Every light in the house had gone out. The lightning had struck the power house downtown,
but we could hear our Mary tearing upstairs faster than she had ever come before. The lameness was not in her feet, which were quite well shaped and pretty, but in her hips. The doctor said afterward that the sudden fright was bad for her nerves but an excellent thing for her hips, for her lameness has been ever so much better since. Well, Daisy and I heard her rushing upstairs, darting into the sitting room and flinging herself on a sofa there.
She knew just where everything was, though the room was pitch dark. “Oh, mother,” she cried, “oh, father—what a coward I am! Why didn’t I stay?”
Then we heard her mother’s clear voice, “Mary, Mary, my child—are you all right?”
“Yes, yes, Mummy dear,” she cried; “but, oh, do come up! Where is Daddy?”