Down the Snow Stairs. Alice Abigail Corkran

Чтение книги онлайн.

      Johnnie’s eyes glistened with sympathy, and he repeated in his feeble voice:

      “Poor old Kitsy!”

      “It was the day,” went on Kitty, wishing to be exact, “that mother said I was to say in my prayers, ‘Pray God, leave us little Johnnie; but thy will be done.’ I prayed all day, I kept going down on my knees, and every time I waked up in the night I said ‘Leave us little Johnnie.’ I did not say ‘Thy will be done.’ I said ‘Leave us little Johnnie, leave us little Johnnie.’”

      There was a silence; then Johnnie said in an odd sort of a way:

      “I know what day that was. It was the day I saw my guardian child.”

      “Your guardian child!” repeated Kitty curiously.

      Johnnie nodded.

      “What was he like?” asked Kitty, pressing nearer up against the bed.

      “He was just like me,” answered Johnnie, looking straight before him, as if he were seeing there what he described; “only his two legs were both the same size—so he had no crutch, and he had a rosy face.”

      “How was he dressed?” asked Kitty, growing more curious.

      “He had a rainbow sort of a coat on,” replied Johnnie, “and he had two little pink wings. I thought he had come, perhaps, because I was going to die—and he wanted to show me that in heaven I was to have two legs the same size, and no crutch.”

      “Oh—o-oh!” cried Kitty, her tears gushing out anew.

      “Don’t cry, Kitsy,” the little panting voice resumed. “When I die I want you to have my cake of gamboge, my rose-pink, my India-ink, and my two sable brushes.”

      “But you are not going to die,” cried Kitty, giving the bed a shake as she plumped against it. “To-morrow is Christmas Day, and you are to be much better to-morrow. Oh, Johnnie!” she added, wiping away her tears, “I have such a present for you: something you wanted ever, ever so much!”

      “Is it another go-cart to take fancy drives in?” asked Johnnie eagerly.

      “A go-cart! No!” answered Kitty scornfully.

      “Is it a musical box with more than one tune?” asked Johnnie, a patch of red forming on one cheek.

      “It is something ever so much more splendid,” cried Kitty; “but you are not to know till to-morrow. It is a secret. I’ll only just tell you”—and she nodded several times impressively—“that it sings and is alive.”

      “Sings and is alive! Is it”—and now a red patch came on both Johnnie’s cheeks—“is it—no, it can’t be—is it—a bu—ull—finch?”

      “Ye—es,” cried Kitty, jumping up and beginning to skip about, first on one bare foot and then on the other. “But you are to forget till to-morrow,” she went on, stopping her dance. “You must forget it, for it is a secret till Christmas Day.”

      “Has it a tune?” whispered Johnnie, taking no notice of this order to forget.

      “A lovely tune,” answered Kitty, her eyes sparkling. “‘Home, sweet home.’ He sings it with his tail up and his head on one side.”

      As Johnnie laughed with joy, Kitty gave a sob of delight.

      “I ran off to the shop by myself, the bird-fancier’s, you know; ever so far. Nurse scolded me dreadfully when I came back; she was so frightened, not finding me anywhere at home.”

      “Oh, I did so long for a bullfinch, dear, good old Kitsy!” murmured Johnnie, looking very wide awake.

      “I am not good. I am very naughty,” said Kitty slowly. “Oh, Johnnie, I am miserable when I have been naughty to you! It gives me a pain here,” and she thumped her chest.

      “You are never naughty. You are a good, GOOD, GOOD Kitsy,” panted Johnnie with emphasis.

      “I am not good to you. I tease you so often, and I am greedy. I take the largest half of things—when you—you—ought to have them all,” cried Kitty, too shaken by repentant sobs to particularize the speech. “I let you fall one day last summer.”

      “Good Kitsy, good old Kitsy all the same,” insisted Johnnie, thumping the coverlid with his tiny fist.

      Still Kitty’s sobs did not subside: they grew bitterer and bitterer. Then came the confession:

      “I made you ill, Johnnie. I took you—out—in the snow.”

      “I made you take me,” said Johnnie sturdily.

      “Mother had said I was not to take you out in the sn—now,” went on Kitty, shaking with sobs. “You did not know she had said so. Oh, Johnnie, forgive me! Say you forgive me!”

      “I made you take me out,” repeated Johnnie. Then, as Kitty’s sobs continued, he put his wee hand on her head, and said in a voice weak as the pipe of a wounded bird, “Don’t cry, Kitsy. I forgive you!”

      There was a silence. Then Kitty dried her tears.

      “I wonder what makes me so naughty!” she said.

      “It is not naughtiness; it is having two legs the same size,” answered Johnnie comfortingly.

      “But if you had two legs the same size, do you think you would be naughty, Johnnie?”

      Johnnie thought awhile; his eyes glistened, and he shook his downy head.

      “I would run all day long and nobody could stop me,” he said.

      “Do you think you would run about and forget things, and often jump about at lesson time?” questioned Kitty.