I tiptoed over to grandmamma's mantel, and looked at her little French clock. It was late! Eight, and past, and Hetty had not called us. What could be the matter?
Down I flew to find out what ailed Aunt Hetty. She was usually an early riser.
Before I reached her room, which was on the same floor with the kitchen, I heard groans issuing from it, and Hetty's voice saying: "Dear me! Oh, dear me!" in the most despairing, agonizing tones. Hetty always makes the most of a "misery in her bones."
"What is it, aunty?" I asked, peering into the room, which she would keep as dark as a pocket.
"De misery in my bones, child! De ole king chills! Sometimes I'm up! Sometimes I'm down!"
The bed shook under the poor thing, and I ran out to ask Patrick to go for the doctor, while I made the fire, and called the girls to help prepare breakfast.
First in order after lighting the fire, which being of wood blazed up directly that the match was applied to the kindlings, came the making of the corn-meal gruel.
A tablespoonful of corn meal wet with six tablespoonfuls of milk, added one by one, gradually, so that the meal is quite free from lumps. One pint of boiling water, and a little salt. You must stir the smooth mixture of the meal and milk into the boiling water. It will cool it a little, and you must stir it until it comes to a boil, then stand it back, and let it simmer fifteen minutes.
The doctor was caught by Patrick just leaving his house to go to a patient ten miles off. He prescribed for Aunt Hetty, looked in upon grandmamma, and told me to keep up my courage, I was a capital little nurse, and he would rather have me to take care of him than anybody else he knew, if he were ill, which he never was.
He drove off in his old buggy, leaving three little maids watching him with admiring eyes. We all loved Doctor Chester. "Now, girls," I said, "we must get our breakfast. We cannot live on air."