Susan Coolidge - What Katy Did Next

“Yes, and in you too. Where will you put Amy to sleep, Katy?”

“What do you think would be best? In Dorry’s room?”

“I think she’d better come in here with you, and I’ll go into Dorry’s room. She is used to sleeping with her mother, you know, and she would be lonely if she were left to herself.”

“Perhaps that will be better, only it is a great bother for you, Clovy dear.”

“I don’t mind,” responded Clover, cheerfully. “I rather like to change about and try a new room once in a while. It’s as good as going on a journey—almost.”

She pushed aside the half-finished dress as she spoke, opened a drawer, took out its contents, and began to carry them across the entry to Dorry’s room, doing everything with the orderly deliberation that was characteristic of whatever Clover did. Her preparations were almost complete before Katy returned, bringing with her little Amy Ashe.

Amy was a tall child of eight, with a frank, happy face, and long light hair hanging down her back. She looked like the pictures of “Alice in Wonderland”; but just at that moment it was a very woeful little Alice indeed that she resembled, for her cheeks were stained with tears and her eyes swollen with recent crying.

“Why, what is the matter?” cried kind little Clover, taking Amy in her arms, and giving her a great hug. “Aren’t you glad that you are coming to make us a visit? We are.”

“Mamma didn’t kiss me for good-bye,” sobbed the little girl. “She didn’t come downstairs at all. She just put her head out of the window and said, ‘Good-bye; Amy, be very good, and don’t make Miss Carr any trouble,’ and then she went away. I never went anywhere before without kissing Mamma for good-bye.”

“Mamma was afraid to kiss you for fear she might give you the fever,” explained Katy, taking her turn as a comforter. “It wasn’t because she forgot. She felt worse about it than you did, I imagine. You know the thing she cares most for is that you shall not be ill as your cousin Walter is. She would rather do anything than have that happen. As soon as he gets well she will kiss you dozens of times, see if she doesn’t. Meanwhile, she says in this note that you must write her a little letter every day, and she will hang a basket by a string out of the window, and you and I will go and drop the letters into the basket, and stand by the gate and see her pull it up. That will be funny, won’t it? We will play that you are my little girl, and that you have a real Mamma and a make-believe Mamma.”

“Shall I sleep with you?” demanded Amy.

“Yes, in that bed over there.”

“It’s a pretty bed,” pronounced Amy after examining it gravely for a moment. “Will you tell me a story every morning?”

“If you don’t wake me up too early. My stories are always sleepy till seven o’clock. Let us see what Ellen has packed in that bag, and then I’ll give you some drawers of your own, and we will put the things away.”

The bag was full of neat little frocks and underclothes stuffed hastily in all together. Katy took them out, smoothing the folds, and crimping the tumbled ruffles with her fingers. As she lifted the last skirt, Amy, with a cry of joy, pounced on something that lay beneath it.

“It is Maria Matilda,” she said, “I’m glad of that. I thought Ellen would forget her, and the poor child wouldn’t know what to do with me and her little sister not coming to see her for so long. She was having the measles on the back shelf of the closet, you know, and nobody would have heard her if she had cried ever so loud.”

“What a pretty face she has!” said Katy, taking the doll out of Amy’s hands.

“Yes, but not so pretty as Mabel. Miss Upham says that Mabel is the prettiest child she ever saw. Look, Miss Clover,” lifting the other doll from the table where she had laid it; “hasn’t she got sweet eyes? She’s older than Maria Matilda, and she knows a great deal more. She’s begun on French verbs!”

“Not really! Which ones?”

“Oh, only ‘J’aime, tu aimes, il aime,’ you know–the same that our class is learning at school. She hasn’t tried any but that. Sometimes she says it quite nicely, but sometimes she’s very stupid, and I have to scold her.” Amy had quite recovered her spirits by this time.

“Are these the only dolls you have?”

“Oh, please don’t call them that !” urged Amy. “It hurts their feelings dreadfully. I never let them know that they are dolls. They think that they are real children, only sometimes when they are very bad I use the word for a punishment. I’ve got several other children. There’s old Ragazza. My uncle named her, and she’s made of rag, but she has such bad rheumatism that I don’t play with her any longer; I just give her medicine. Then there’s Effie Deans, she’s only got one leg; and Mopsa the Fairy, she’s a tiny one made out of china; and Peg of Linkinvaddy–but she don’t count, for she’s all come to pieces.”

“What very queer names your children have!” said Elsie, who had come in during the enumeration.

“Yes; Uncle Ned named them. He’s a very funny uncle, but he’s nice. He’s always so much interested in my children.”

“There’s Papa now!” cried Katy; and she ran downstairs to meet him.

“Did I do right?” she asked anxiously after she had told her story.

“Yes, my dear, perfectly right,” replied Dr. Carr. “I only hope Amy was taken away in time. I will go round at once to see Mrs. Ashe and the boy; and, Katy, keep away from me when I come back, and keep the others away, till I have changed my coat.”

It is odd how soon and how easily human beings accustom themselves to a new condition of things. When sudden illness comes, or sudden sorrow, or a house is burned up, or blown down by a tornado, there are a few hours or days of confusion and bewilderment, and then people gather up their wits and their courage and set to work to repair damages. They clear away ruins, plant, rebuild, very much as ants whose hill has been trodden upon, after running wildly about for a little while, begin all together to reconstruct the tiny cone of sand which is so important in their eyes. In a very short time the changes which at first seem so sad and strange become accustomed and matter-of-course things which no longer surprise us.

It seemed to the Carrs after a few days as if they had always had Amy in the house with them. Papa’s daily visit to the sick room, their avoidance of him till after he had “changed his coat”, Amy’s lessons and games of play, her dressing and undressing, the walks with the make-believe Mamma, the dropping of notes into the little basket, seemed part of a system of things which had been going on for a long, long time, and which everybody would miss should they suddenly stop.

But they by no means suddenly stopped. Little Walter Ashe’s case proved to be rather a severe one; and after he had begun to mend, he caught cold somehow and was taken worse again. There were some serious symptoms, and for a few days Dr. Carr did not feel sure how things would turn. He did not speak of his anxiety at home, but kept silence and a cheerful face, as doctors know how to do. Only Katy, who was more intimate with her father than the rest, guessed that things were going gravely at the other house, and she was too well trained to ask questions. The threatening symptoms passed off, however, and little Walter slowly got better; but it was a long convalescence, and Mrs. Ashe grew thin and pale before he began to look rosy. There was no one on whom she could devolve the charge of the child. His mother was dead; his father, an overworked business man, had barely time to run up once a week to see about him; there was no one at his home but a housekeeper, in whom Mrs. Ashe had not full confidence. So the good aunt denied herself the sight of her own child, and devoted her strength and time to Walter; and nearly two months passed, and still little Amy remained at Dr. Carr’s.