All this time Leigh kept on patiently with his training or “breaking-in” of Fuzz. Whenever he had a chance of getting off to the stables alone, for half an hour or so, he harnessed the dog to the remains of a cart that I told you of, and drove him up and down the paths. No one but the stablemen and the gardeners knew about it, and they only thought it was a fancy of the boy’s and never spoke about it.
And Leigh told nobody—not even Artie—of what he had got in his head.
He kept saying to himself he wanted to “surprise” them all, and that if he told Artie every one would be sure to hear of it.
“And I must manage to try it first without nurse fussing,” he thought. “She’d never believe it would do. She’s so stupid about some things.”
But at the bottom of his heart, I think he knew that what he was meaning to do was not a right thing for him to try without leave from the grown-up people, and that it was the fear of their stopping it much more than the wish to “surprise” everybody that made him keep his plan so secret.
So he said nothing, but waited for a chance to come.
And before long the chance did come. It does seem sometimes as if chances for wrong things or not-right things come more quickly and more surely than for good things, I am afraid. Or is it, perhaps, that we are more ready to catch at them?
Now I must tell you that Emma, the under-nurse, was not a very sensible girl. She was more taken up with herself and her dresses and chattering to whoever would listen to her than with her own work and duties; and she was very fond of calling nurse old-fashioned and fussy and too strict, which was not right. She spoke of her in that way to Leigh, and made him fancy he was too big a boy to be treated like a nursery child, which was very mischievous. But she was a good-natured girl, and she was what is called “civil-spoken” to nurse and to the other servants, so nurse hoped she would improve as she got older, though she found her lazy and careless very often.
Just about this time, unfortunately, poor nurse sprained her ankle. It did not make her ill, for it was not very bad and soon began to get better, but it stopped her going out walks for two or three days.
The first day this happened was one of the afternoons that Leigh had Latin lessons with a tutor, so only Artie and Mary went out a walk with Baby Dolly in the perambulator and Emma pushing it.