“Yes, Aunt Kate; did you bring Vanny-Boy in?”
“No, dear, we did not waken in time.”
“Oh, Aunt Kate! He’s out there now?”
“We dare not open the door, Betsy. This is a terrible storm. I do not know what would happen if the wind should find an entrance.”
“We must get him—he will be killed!”
“We cannot, dear. It is not possible. He may not get hurt at all; and then any one might be killed who tried to go after him when things are flying as they are now. We must wait for a lull in the storm.”
Betsy said no more, but waited till Mrs. Johns went on further errands. Then, clinging to the walls and balusters, she stole down the stairs, and looked through the window that opened on the honeysuckle porch. It was a scene of battle; the matting screen, torn in shreds, appeared glued to the ceiling; as she looked, the last rocking-chair went careening away into the yard, where the wreckage of the other furniture already lay. Pillows and blankets were clinging to tree-trunks or plastered to sodden flower-beds, and poor Van was standing on the mattress, watching with big, frightened eyes as things went by.
Rip! went a shutter over his head, and trembling he crept up on the sill whose angle offered a bit of shelter.
Just in time! The next gust took the mattress with it, leaving only the bare iron bones of the cot, to which Van’s chain was fastened.
“If the wind should blow him off, his little neck would be broken. I must do something,” thought Betsy.