CHAPTER XI

Much against Miss Charity Folger’s will, her sister-in-law insisted on sending Lis for the doctor.

“Maybe it’s nothing but being overtired, as you say, sister,” she observed, wisely, “but it won’t do a speck of harm to hear what the doctor thinks. You run on over to Doc Spencer’s, Lister, and fetch him back with you.”

Dr. Spencer, who had known the whole Folger family since the elder members of it were the ages of Erica and Lis themselves, arrived promptly a few minutes later, and proceeded to make a careful examination of Miss Charity. At the end of it he sat back in the straight chair by the bed, and looked gravely from his patient to Mrs. Callie Folger.

“There’s nothing to be scared about, if we take care,” he said at length, in reply to the two pairs of inquiring eyes fastened on his face. “But ye’ve got to make up your mind to take a good rest, Miss Charity, and there’s the long and short of it. I was never one to mince matters with my patients. Better tell the truth plainly, and then everybody knows where they stand.”

“It’s—my heart, Doctor?” Miss Charity asked, steadily.

He nodded kindly. “It’s not acting just like I’d prefer to have it,” he admitted. “Still, there’s nothing so serious rest an’ care can’t set it right. But no more housework, or runnin’ upstairs and down—for the present at any rate. Let Ricky, here, take the helm. She’s ‘most a woman now. Ain’t ye, young lady?” he demanded, swiftly, of Erica, with a smile. She was a great favorite of his, and he invariably took her side when her aunts deplored, in his hearing, her tomboy ways, which were so unlike what was considered fitting and ladylike in that day and generation, for a girl.

“Of course I’ll take care of her, Doctor,” Erica spoke up, sturdily. “I can dust and sweep well enough, if I have to, and I love to cook—so I’ll be all right _there_, in any case.”

“Oh, but Erica must go to school till the term ends,” Miss Charity said with all her old firmness, half raising herself from the pillow. “Callie and I’ll talk things over—make other arrangements—” Her voice grew less steady and sure of itself, and with the last word trailed off into a rather breathless murmur.

“There—that’s just what I won’t have, Miss Charity,” Dr. Spencer said, quickly and decidedly, leaning forward to force her gently back on the pillows. “You’re to keep still, and _not worry_. There’ll be somebody in the village we can get to come and stay here while Ricky’s at school. Just wait a bit till I mull over the list of lone females of my acquaintance.” He grinned cheerfully, but both ladies were too troubled to meet his humor, and made no reply.

Silence descended on the room for a moment, and then Mrs. Folger leaned toward her sister-in-law, her face full of a half-pleading, half-eager triumph.

“I’ve got it, sister,” she declared. “You must rent this house to Sally Gardiner’s daughter. You know she’s been hunting high and low for something here on Orange Street near her mother. And she’s well fixed, since her marriage, to pay a good price for it, too. Then you and Erica can come to me.”

“Hooray!” burst out Lis, irrepressibly, flashing his mother an approving glance. “That’s the best notion I ever heard! Now, then, Doctor, tell Aunt Charity that’s your prescription, and that she’s to take it quietly, like a sensible woman.”

“It’s exactly what I will do, Lis,” Dr. Spencer concurred, in high delight. “Never heard of a better-worked-out plan, myself. And Sara’ll be as pleased as all the rest of us. I’ve heard her say, many’s the time, this was the homeiest, most comfortable house in the whole of town. So _that’s_ settled, and I’ll—with your permission, Miss Charity—just drop in at old Mrs. Gardiner’s on my way home, and tell them both the house’s in the market. Sara’ll jump at it like a hungry trout at a fly.”

He got to his feet, and stood rocking back and forth on his flat-toed shoes, ponderously, surveying the little group before him with a beaming smile.

Miss Charity returned the smile doubtfully, her eyes going to Mrs. Folger questioningly. “Do you really think it wise, Callie?” she asked. “It will make so much extra work for you—and you not any too strong, either. But I’ll own I’d be easier in my mind.” She turned a little, and Mrs. Folger bent over, with rare demonstration, and laid her hand on the thin, bony one resting on the coverlet.

“Of course you would, and so would I—a hundred times easier,” she said. “Besides, with two strong girls like Milly Thorne and Erica in the house to help me, and Lis here for the heavy chores, there won’t be a mite of difference in the work, so far as I’m concerned. That’s a right clever idea of yours, Doctor, to stop in and tell Sara and her mother tonight, before they have a chance to decide on anything else. Sister and I’ll be much obliged to you. The quicker I get her over in the big four-poster in my front room, the happier I’ll be. I’ll have another bed moved into the east room, where Milly sleeps, for Erica. It’s plenty big enough for two girls, though I always hold with folk each having a bed to themselves, if it’s anyway possible.”

A look of startled dismay peeped out of Erica’s sea-blue eyes as she listened to these plans being made for her, and her lips parted involuntarily as if to protest. Then with a glance at Aunt Charity’s pale face on the pillow, with that new, relieved little smile hovering about her mouth, she resolutely swallowed the words she had been about to utter, and sat silent, staring at the carpeted floor unseeingly. This was no time to trouble poor Aunt Charity; and certainly Aunt Callie was doing the best she could in stretching her none-too-large house to accommodate all the extra guests who had unexpectedly descended upon it in the past year. And her plan seemed the only practicable solution.

“You—you’re awfully good to us, Aunt Callie,” she forced herself to say, though a bit tremulously. “I promise I’ll do all I can to make it up to you.”

And so, all in a minute, the new plan was decided on, and the old familiar life she had known up to now was changed beyond recall. Ordinarily, of course, Erica would have found nothing to regret or dread in the idea of living in the same house with Aunt Callie and Lis, but the presence of Milly as a member of that household, and to have to share her room with her—and Erica had never had a room-mate before—was not so pleasant a prospect.

Dr. Spencer’s prediction that Sara Gardiner would jump at the chance to acquire Miss Charity’s house was a true one. Indeed, so eager was she to move in as speedily as possible, that the end of the following week saw Miss Charity and Erica duly installed in their new home, and the old gray house next door occupied by Mr. and Mrs. Ned Wills—Mrs. Wills being the married name of Sara Gardiner.

Somewhat to Erica’s surprise, Milly was unusually gracious about the new plan. She did not show by so much as a look that she resented—if she did resent it—having a room-mate thrust upon her unexpectedly. She cleared out half of the big wardrobe, without being asked, for Erica’s clothes, and moved the deepest and most comfortable chair over to the latter’s side of the room. Altogether Milly seemed a changed girl, quite suddenly. She did not sulk in corners now, though she continued to be, as always, a voracious reader when not busy with the various household duties that were her share. Erica noticed, too, that Milly appeared to be rather mysteriously excited about something—she went about the house with a most novel air of importance, and Erica came on her whispering with Lis once or twice, both of them evidently highly elated, and so absorbed in their topic of conversation they didn’t notice Erica’s presence in the room.

It was the first time Erica had ever been shut out from a share in anything that interested the twins, and the experience was not a pleasant one. She had made all sorts of good resolutions with regard to Milly, on coming to live at Aunt Callie’s, and she heroically tried to carry them out now, even in the face of this latest provocation. But she wished a dozen times a day for Tommy’s hot-headed championship. Tommy would never have let her feel left out and lonely, as she was beginning to feel more and often as the days passed. It was not that Lis himself ever showed any difference in his usual brotherly manner toward her; it was the fact of his sharing a secret with Milly, especially when he knew how Erica felt toward the other girl. She had finally come to persuade herself that it was almost disloyal of Lis; and out of school hours, she made her duties as nurse for Aunt Charity the excuse for keeping more and more out of both Milly’s and Lister’s way whenever she could.

Milly certainly noticed Erica’s new course of action, even if Lis continued stupidly unobservant, and after a little while it seemed as if she were trying to retaliate in kind, for she began leaving more of the housework—the dusting, washing of dishes, and sweeping—to Erica, and slipping off with a book, or her sewing-box, to a certain corner of the big, raftered attic which had been given over to little Barbee for a playroom.

Of course it was part of Milly’s duties to keep a watchful eye on her baby sister, and see that she did not get into trouble or annoy any of the grown-ups in the household. Still, when Barbee was entertaining her small self peacefully in the attic, it didn’t seem as if it were actually necessary for Milly to sit up there idly, day after day, and play nurse. There was no way in which the child could hurt herself, and there was certainly nothing she could break or destroy among the heavy chests, trunks, and discarded furniture that crowded the old garret. No, Erica decided, with a flash of indignant self-pity—and this was an emotion as novel to the girl as the conditions which had called it forth—Milly was paying her back in her own coin, and with interest added. Life had suddenly become for Erica Folger a strange, unfamiliar, miserable affair.

Several weeks dragged by in this fashion, and then one evening Milly came in late for supper, her dark, fretful face so changed and softened by a sort of shy, triumphant happiness that everyone at the table involuntarily laid down spoons and forks and sat back to stare at her.

It was Lis who broke the second of silence by jumping to his feet and rushing round to thump Milly heartily on the back as if she had been Tommy himself.

“She liked ‘em?” he queried, unintelligibly to the rest of the household, who looked in amazement from Milly’s sparkling face to Lister’s, which had become, all of a sudden, equally radiant.

“She certainly did,” Milly responded, a faint dimple actually appearing beside her smiling mouth. It was a new Milly, a normal, happy, excited girl whom none of the family, except perhaps Lis, who seemed to be in her secrets, recognized. Milly almost danced up to the end of the supper table, and held out a shaking hand, palm upward, to Mrs. Folger.

“Look!” she demanded in a voice that shook too. “I earned it all myself. And I can make more. I’m going to pay for Barbee’s and my keep. I needn’t be a burden on even your kindness, dear Cousin Callie, though I know you’ve never felt it that, or—or made me feel it.” Stooping swiftly, she pressed her lips surprisingly to Mrs. Folger’s cheek, and then straightened in embarrassment, her own cheeks scarlet.

Lying on Milly’s outspread palm there was a new, shiny ten-dollar gold piece. Aunt Callie took off her spectacles, wiped them, and, replacing them on her nose, bent nearer to study this amazing sight more carefully.

“My dear child!” she ejaculated wonderingly. “Where did you come by that?”

“It’s all right, mother,” Lis broke in, hurriedly. “She earned it right enough, just as she told you. Here, let me tell ‘em, Milly! You’re so excited you can’t talk straight. Mother, Milly’s been fretting her head like a silly girl over the notion that she and Barbee are dependent on us, and maybe depriving you of things you would otherwise be able to buy. Such stuff! Imagine! the little those two eat!” Lis sniffed in high scorn, and Mrs. Folger, with a little cry of protest, reached up and impulsively gathered Milly into a motherly embrace.

“Well, anyhow,” Lis pursued, grinning approvingly at the two, “she did have that notion, and nothing I could do would talk her out of it. She said she simply _had_ to make money somehow—at least enough to pay for their food and clothes. And she said she believed she could do that by sewing for folks. Seems several ladies here in town, who’ve seen the things she’s made for Barbee, have told her they’d give ‘most anything to have her do the same thing for their children. Mrs. Macy over on Pearl Street, for one, and Mrs. Hedley, and one or two others. Milly had some patterns, too, that her mother had had, of the latest styles for children this last year in Boston, and they wanted her to copy these for them. But Milly was afraid you wouldn’t let her, mother. Or that you’d be afraid she couldn’t do it well enough—or—well, that something would happen to stop her. So she asked me if I thought it would be very wrong if she did some little dresses for Mrs. Macy’s baby, without telling any of the family, till we saw how they turned out. And I urged her to go ahead.”

“Oh-h-h! so that’s what you were always slipping off up to the attic for!” Erica burst out, enlightenment coming to her. “You were doing the cutting out and sewing up there, where no one would see but Barbee, or ask questions.” Now that she knew the nature of the secret that had made her so miserable, she felt a sudden quick shame of her own grudging attitude during the last few weeks. Her cheeks were as red as Milly’s, now, though from a quite different emotion.

“Yes, and I’m so glad to be able to tell you all, at last, and explain,” Milly said, happily. “I made six dresses and little slips for the Macy baby—all wee tucks, and some fagoting and drawn-work. My! they _were_ pretty, honestly! And I did two dresses, besides, for little Nettie Hedley. I got the money they paid me changed into this gold piece, because it seemed to me only gold was good enough to hand over to you, Cousin Callie, after all your goodness to Barbee and me!” Milly ended in a voice that broke on a strangled sob, and with a quick motion she turned, hiding her face on Mrs. Folger’s shoulder, much as Barbee herself might have done.

“Please say you don’t mind, Cousin Callie,” she whispered in a muffled voice. “I do love to sew, and it’s such fun knowing I’m making real money of my own! And I promise not to let it interfere with my lessons—you’ll find my marks are just as good as they used to be. I’ve only done the sewing in the times I read books in, before I took up making the dresses. And Mrs. Macy wants some sewing for herself, later, and there are two more baby outfits I’ve been asked to make this spring. Just think what _riches_!” she wound up blissfully. “I’ll have maybe as much as _twenty_ dollars before summer comes if I get all the work that’s been offered me. You see, because the styles are new, and they like my ideas, and the way I sew, they’re willing to pay me well. I—I’m awfully happy, Cousin Callie.”

Erica spoke up, in a determined rush of shamed words. “If you are, I haven’t done much to help make you so, poor Milly. I’m feeling pretty _sick_ at myself, and I want to say so right out.”