“Poor Granny!” murmured the girl, softly, tears coming into her eyes. “I wish’t we could get ’round, the two of us, in these sweet-smellin’ spring woods, an’ get the first Mayflowers together! Couldn’t you just try now, Granny? I believe you are goin’ to walk all right again some day, just as well as any of us. Do try!”
Thus adjured, the old woman grasped the arms of her chair sturdily, set her jaw, and lifted herself quite upright. But a groan forced itself from her lips, and she sank back heavily, her face creased with pain. Recovering herself with a resolute effort, however, she smiled rather ruefully.
“Some day, mebbe, if the good Lord wills!” said she, shaking her head. “But ’tain’t this day, Melindy! You’ll be the death o’ me yet, Child, you’re so set on me gittin’ ’round ag’in!”
“Why, Granny, you did splendid!” cried the girl. “That was the best yet, the best you’ve ever done since I come to you. You stood just as straight as anybody for a minute. Now, I’ll go an’ hunt old ‘Spotty.’” And she turned toward the tiny path that led across the pasture to the burnt-woods.
But Mrs. Griffis’s voice detained her.
“What’s the good o’ botherin’ about old ‘Spotty’ to-night, Melindy? Let her have her fling. Them frogs make me that lonesome to-night I can’t bear to let ye a minnit out o’ my sight, Child! 261 Ther’ ain’t no other sound like it, to my way o’ thinkin’, for music nor for lonesomeness. It ’most breaks my heart with the sweetness of it, risin’ an’ fallin’ on the wet twilight that way. But I just got to have somebody ’round when I listen to it!”
“Yes, Granny, I love it, too!” assented Melindy in a preoccupied tone, “when I ain’t too bothered to listen. Just now, I’m thinkin’ about old ‘Spotty’ out there alone in the woods, an’ maybe some hungry lynxes watchin’ for her to lie down an’ go to sleep. You know how hungry the bears will be this spring, too, Granny, after the snow layin’ deep so late. I just couldn’t sleep, if I thought old ‘Spotty’ was out there in them queer, grey, empty woods all night. In summer it’s different, an’ then the woods are like home.”
“Well,” said her grandmother, seeing that the girl was bent upon her purpose, “if ye’re skeered for old ‘Spotty,’ ye’d better be a little mite skeered for yerself, Child! Take along the gun. Mebbe ye might see a chipmunk a-bitin’ the old cow jest awful!”
Heedless of her grandmother’s gibe, Melindy, who had a very practical brain under her fluffy light hair, picked up the handy little axe which she used for chopping kindling.
“No guns for me, Granny, you know,” she retorted. “This ’ere little axe’s good enough for me!” 262 And swinging it over her shoulder she went lightly up the path, her head to one side, her small mouth puckered in a vain effort to learn to whistle.