CHAPTER VI
PRUDY SICK
When aunt Madge went up stairs that night she found little Prudy hiding her head under the pillow, and screaming with fright.
"O, there I was!" cried the child, tossing up her arms, "all tumbled out of the window! And the man got me, and I begun to be dead!"
"Why no, darling!" said aunt Madge, "here is auntie close by you, and here you are in your pretty white bed;—don't you see?"
"No, no!" screamed Prudy, "I'm up in the Pines, I ain't here."
"Perhaps you'd like to have me sing to you," said aunt Madge; and she began, in a low voice, a little ditty Prudy loved:
"There was a little darling
I used to know,
And they called her Prudy,
Long time ago."
"Stop, Nancy," said Prudy, "you put a toad in my mouth!—I must have a drink—dreffully!"
Aunt Madge brought some water, but her fingers were not steady, and the glass trembled against the child's hot lips. She watched till Prudy dozed again, and then stole softly down stairs to get a "night candle," and to tell her mother she was really afraid Prudy was going to be sick.