“I never did see such a child—I never did!” Aunty Rose repeated.
The next morning Carolyn May seemed to be in good condition. Indeed, she was the only individual vitally interested in the adventure who did not pay for the exposure. Even Prince had barked his legs being hauled out on to the ice. Uncle Joe had caught a bad cold in his head and suffered from it for some time. Miss Amanda remained in bed for several days. But it was poor Chet Gormley who paid the dearest price for participation in the exciting incident. Dr. Nugent had hard work fighting off pneumonia.
Mr. Stagg surprised himself by the interest he took in Chet. He closed his store twice each day to call at the Widow Gormley’s house. The seamstress was so delighted with this attention on the hardware merchant’s part that she was willing to accept at its face value Chet’s hope and expectation that some day the sign over the store door would read, “Stagg & Gormley.”
It was a fact that Mr. Stagg found himself talking with Chet more than he ever had before. The boy was lonely, and the man found a spark of interest in his heart for him that he had never previously discovered. He began to probe into his young employee’s thoughts, to learn something of his outlook on life; perhaps, even, he got some inkling of Chet’s ambition.
That week the ice went entirely out of the cove. Spring was at hand, with its muddy roads, blue skies, sweeter airs, soft rains, and a general revivifying feeling.
Aunty Rose declared that Carolyn May began at once to “perk up.” Perhaps the cold, long winter had been hard for the child to bear. At least, being able to run out of doors without stopping to bundle up was a delight.
One day the little girl had a more than ordinarily hard school task to perform. Everything did not come easy to Carolyn May, “by any manner of means,” as Aunty Rose would have said. Composition writing was her bane, and Miss Minnie had instructed all Carolyn May’s class to bring in a written exercise the next morning. The little girl wandered over to the churchyard with her slate and pencil—and Prince, of course—to try to achieve the composition.
The earth was dry and warm and the grass was springing freshly. A soft wind blew from the south and brought with it the scent of growing things.
The windows of the minister’s study overlooked this spot, and he was sitting at his desk while Carolyn May was laboriously writing the words on her slate (having learned to use a slate) which she expected later to copy into her composition book.
The Reverend Afton Driggs watched her puzzled face and labouring fingers for some moments before calling out of the window to her. Several sheets of sermon paper lay before him on the desk, and perhaps he was having almost as hard a time putting on the paper what he desired to say as Carolyn May was having with her writing.