CHAPTER IV.
“MARIA.”
SUCH colds! Never was any thing like them. Day after day Max sat by the fire with a splitting headache, cold chills running down his back; while night after night Thekla awoke, coughing and choking from a spot in her throat which burned like a live coal. I can tell you, when March gives a present he does it in real earnest.
“One day in an old garret I found the doll, who, as I said, was living in a closet.”
They were so miserable you might have thought that even March must pity them a little. But he didn’t,—not a bit. As he told the children, he was any thing but a “tender-hearted person.” When they were at the very worst, they could hear him astride the roof, roaring and whooping down the chimney in the most unfeeling way; and he regularly banged the door open on cold nights to let the wind in; so that, at last, Max never thought of sitting down to supper without first putting a heavy chair against it to keep it shut. So blustering and ill-tempered a Month was never known. But at last his turn came to go; and, by that time, what with patience and catnip tea the children had begun to get better.
There is a great difference, however, between being better and being well. Thekla’s hands were still too weak and thin to twirl the spindle, and for many a day the wood-carving had lain untouched in the cupboard. It seemed as if they were too languid to enjoy any thing; and, when the evening came for April’s visit, Max would hardly take the trouble to rise and fetch the can, though Thekla reminded him. After it was brought out, however, and the fire poked into a blaze, they felt a little brighter. Poor things, it was a long time since any thing pleasant had happened to them!
The night was still. The noisy winds had fallen asleep, so that you could hear the least sounds far away in the forest. By and by light footsteps became audible, drawing nearer; and Max had time to run for a chair and place it in the cosiest corner, before a soft tap fell upon the door.
“May I come in?” said a voice, very gently and politely. How different from rude March!
This was April. She looked very young and small; and, as Thekla went forward to greet her, she felt as if it were some little visitor of her own age come to tea. It was with a sense of protection and hospitality that she took from her hand a great bundle, which seemed heavy. April sat down, and then she put her arm round Thekla’s waist and pulled her nearer, bundle and all. She had an odd, pretty face when you came to look at it. The lips laughed of themselves; but the eyes, which were blue and misty, seemed to have tears behind them all ready to fall. Or if, as sometimes happened, the lips took a fancy to pout, then the eyes had their turn, and brightened and twinkled so that you could not help smiling. It would have puzzled anybody whether to call the countenance most sad or most merry. April’s hair was all wavy and blowsy, as if she had been out in a gale of wind. Two or three violets were stuck in it; and the voice with which she spoke sounded like the tinkle of rain-drops on the leaves.
“Look,” she said, “what I have brought you!” and she unfastened the bundle, which was pinned together with a long red thorn.