Billie Bradley and Her Classmates: or, The Secret of the Locked Tower. Wheeler Janet D.

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СКАЧАТЬ started to retort angrily, but knowing that silence was the very worst punishment one could inflict upon Eliza she merely shrugged her shoulders, turned up her straight little nose as far as it would go and walked off, leaving Eliza fuming helplessly.

      When Billie reached the dormitory she found the girls waiting for her in an agitated group. There was not one of them who would have dared to approach Miss Walters after school hours unless it had been about a matter of life and death importance, and they had more than half expected that Billie would be carried back on a stretcher.

      When they found out what had really happened they welcomed Billie as a hero should be welcomed. They lifted her on their shoulders and carried her round the dormitory, chanting school songs till a warning hiss from one of the girls near the door sent them scuttling. By the time Miss Arbuckle reached the dormitory, they were bent decorously over their text-books, seeking what knowledge they might discover!

      Next morning, true to her word, Miss Walters herself superintended the packing of an immense basket with all the dainties at her command. There were chicken and roast beef sandwiches, half of a leg of lamb, two or three different kinds of jelly, some rice pudding left over from the night before, a big slab of cake, two quarts of fresh milk, and some beef tea made especially for the Haddons.

      And the girls, feeling more important than they had ever felt before in their lives, marched off after breakfast, during school hours – Miss Walters having personally excused them from class – joyfully bent upon playing the good Samaritan.

      “I never knew,” said Laura, as if she were making a great discovery, “that it could make you so happy to be kind to somebody else!”

      CHAPTER VI – TROUBLE

      It was the girls’ intention at first to leave the hamper of good things before the Haddons’ door so that Mrs. Haddon would have no chance of refusing the gift through pride.

      But when they came to the little cottage after half an hour of steady walking, they found to their dismay that Fate had taken a hand and spoiled all their plans.

      For Mrs. Haddon herself, a shawl over her head and looking even more worried and anxious than she had when they had seen her before, rounded the corner of the house and met them just as they reached the door.

      For a moment the girls had a panicky impulse to drop the basket and run, but on second thought they decided that that would be just about the worst thing they could possibly do. And while they were trying to think up something to say, Mrs. Haddon took the whole situation entirely out of their hands.

      At first she did not seem to recognize them, but the next instant her face lighted up with relief and she opened the door of the cottage, beckoning them to enter.

      “Just stay here in the kitchen a minute where it’s warm,” she directed them in a strained tone, and before the girls had time to draw their breath she had disappeared from the room, leaving the classmates alone.

      “Now we’ve gone and spilled the beans,” whispered slangy Laura, eyeing the blameless hamper disapprovingly as she warmed her chilled hands before the stove. “I don’t suppose she will touch a thing now, and after we went and walked all this way, and everything, too – ”

      “Sh-h,” cautioned Billie, a hand to her lips. “She’s coming back.”

      At that moment Mrs. Haddon did indeed come back into the kitchen. She closed the door very gently behind her and then came quickly toward the girls.

      “Listen,” she said breathlessly. “I don’t know who sent you, just now. Maybe it was God.” She caught her breath on the words and the girls regarded her wonderingly and a little fearfully. For goodness’ sake! what was she talking about?

      “Anyway, you’ve come,” went on the woman, swiftly. “And if you want to, you can do me a great favor.”

      “What is it?” they asked together.

      “Run for the nearest doctor, one of you – or all of you,” said the woman, her words stumbling over one another in her agitation. “Peter, my little boy, is sick. If I don’t have a doctor very soon, he may die.”

      “Oh, where is the nearest doctor?” asked Billie, breathlessly, her eyes big with sympathy. “Tell me and I’ll go.”

      “Half a mile down the road!” said the woman. “Dr. Ramsey! In the big white house! These are his office hours. He should be at home. I just went to a neighbor’s, but she was not at home and I could not go myself. Peter would have been alone – ”

      “I’ll go, and I’ll have him back here in half an hour,” promised Billie, running to the door as she spoke. But Laura grabbed her skirt and held on to it.

      “No, you stay here. I’ll go,” she said, thinking desperately of the food hamper and fearing that if Billie went for the doctor she would probably have to explain their mission.

      “I’ll go with you,” volunteered Vi, with the same thought in mind, and before Billie could do more than blink, her two chums had flashed through the door, closing it with a sharp little click behind them. Then it opened again for an instant and Laura put her pretty head inside.

      “You always could explain things so much better than the rest of us, Billie,” she said, by way of excuse, it is to be supposed – and then the door closed again.

      It was good for Billie at that moment that she had been blessed with a sense of humor. Otherwise, she might have been a little put out.

      As it was, she took it as a joke on her and turned back resignedly to her task of telling why they had come to proud Polly Haddon.

      The latter was pacing the floor anxiously. Then, as a little moan came from the next room, she flew to the patient, leaving Billie entirely alone.

      The latter regarded the hamper uncertainly for a moment, then, with a sigh, she lifted it from the floor to the rickety kitchen table.

      “I’ll let her see all the good things first,” she decided wisely, as she removed the cover from the basket, exposing to view its inviting contents. “Then maybe she’ll be too busy looking at them to be angry.”

      So busy was she that she did not hear Mrs. Haddon reënter the room. Neither did she know that the latter was staring unbelievingly over her shoulder till a slight exclamation of wonder made her start and whirl round suddenly.

      “Where did you get all that?” asked the woman, her eyes still fixed on the contents of the basket. “And what is it for?”

      “It’s – it’s for you – if you will take it, please,” stammered Billie, in her surprise and confusion saying what came first to her mind. “We – we thought maybe – maybe the kiddies would like the beef tea and milk and – and – things – ” she finished weakly, thinking resentfully that the girls, or one of them anyway, might have stayed and helped her out.

      But after all, she need not have worried. For an instant the look that Billie had expected and dreaded flared into Polly Haddon’s eyes – a look of outraged pride. But then the woman thought of the children – and she had no pride.

      “You said you brought some beef tea?” she repeated, bending eagerly over the basket. “And milk?”

      “Two quarts of milk,” cried Billie, joyfully, the relief she felt singing in her voice. “And we made the beef tea fresh this morning. СКАЧАТЬ