CHAPTER XIV. — “SOMETHING'S HAPPENED!”
Sallie Calkins sat in a common little rocking-chair and rocked; and while she rocked she sewed, setting neat stitches in a brown coat which was already patched and darned and was threadbare in many places. There was a look of deep content on Sallie's face. There were many reasons for it.
Dr. Everett had that morning pronounced Mark's broken limb to be healing rapidly. He had also reported that Mark's place was to be held open for him by his employers. At this present moment, Mark, arrayed in a clean shirt, was resting on a very white sheet, his head reposing on a real feather pillow dressed in white and frilled. Over him was carefully spread another of those wonderful sheets, and to make the crowning glory, a white quilt, warm and soft, tucked him in on every side. How could Sallie but rejoice? All about the room there had been changes. A neat little table stood at the bed's side. It was covered with a white cloth, and a china bowl set thereon with a silver spoon beside it; a delicate goblet and china pitcher also, both carefully covered with a napkin. Did Mrs. Roberts know how homely Sallie gloried in the thinness of that china and the fineness of that napkin? How does it happen that some of the very poor seem born with such aesthetic tastes? Mrs. Roberts had intuitions, and was given to certain acts, concerning which she could not give to others satisfactory explanations. Therefore, she sometimes left china where others would have judged the plainest stoneware more prudent and sensible.
A bit of bright carpet was spread at the side of the bed. A fire glowed in the neatly-brushed stove. A white muslin curtain hung at the window; and the chair in which Sallie rocked and sewed was new and gayly painted.
There were other traces of Mrs. Roberts. You might not have noticed them, but it seemed to Sallie that her fingers had touched everywhere. Yet the lady herself thought that she had done very little. She had held her inclinations in check with severe judgment.
The door opened softly, and a mass of golden hair, from out of which peered great eyes, peeped cautiously in.
“Alone?” it said, nodding first toward the figure on the bed, and intimating that she was aware of Mark's presence, and did not mean him.
“Yes,” said Sallie, “come in; Mark's asleep, but you won't disturb him; he don't disturb easy; he sleeps just like a baby since the doctor stopped that pain in his knee. There's my new chair; just try it and see how nice it is.”