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“I’ll have something to tell Dorothy,” she remarked aloud.
“And I’ll have news for Nat,” slily said Bob.
CHAPTER V
DOROTHY’S PROTEGE
“Well, what do you think of that!”
“Well, what do you think of this!”
It was Nat who spoke first, and Dorothy who echoed. They were both looking at letters – from Tavia and from Bob.
“I knew Bob would find her interesting,” said Nat, with some irony in his tone.
“And I knew she would finally like him,” said Dorothy, significantly.
“Bob has a way with girls,” went on Nat, “he always takes them slowly – it’s the surest way.”
“But don’t you think Tavia is very pretty? Everyone at school raves about her,” Dorothy declared with unstinted pride, for Tavia’s golden brown hair, and matchless complexion, were ever a source of pride to her chum.
“Of course she’s pretty,” Nat agreed. “Wasn’t it I who discovered her?”
Dorothy laughed, and gave a lock of her cousin’s own brown hair a twist. She, as well as all their mutual friends, knew that Nat and Tavia were the sort of chums who grow up together and cement their friendship with the test of time.
“Come to think of it,” she replied, “you always did like red-headed girls.”
“Now there’s Mabel,” he digressed, “Mabel has hair that seems a misfit – she has blue eyes and black hair. Isn’t that an error?”
“Indeed,” replied Dorothy, “that is considered one of the very best combinations. Rare beauty, in fact.”
“Well, I hope she is on time for the Christmas-tree affair out at Sanders’s, whatever shade her hair. I don’t see, Doro, why you insist on going away out there to put things on that tree. Why not ask the Sunday School people to trim it? We gave the tree.”
“Because I promised, Nat,” replied Dorothy, firmly, “and because I just like to do it for little Emily. I got the very doll she ordered, and Aunt Winnie got me a lot of pretty things this morning.”
“Wish momsey would devote her charity to her poor little son,” said the young man, drily. “He is the one who needs it most!”
“Never mind, dear,” and Dorothy put her arms around him, “you shall have a dolly, too.”
“Here’s Ned,” he interrupted, “I wonder if he got my skates sharpened? I asked him, but I’ll wager he forgot.”
The other brother, a few years Nat’s senior, pulled off his furlined coat, and entered the library, where the cousins were chatting.
“Getting colder every minute,” he declared. “We had better take the cutter out to Sanders’s – that is, if Doro insists upon going.”
“Of course I do,” Dorothy cried. “I wouldn’t disappoint little Emily for anything. Funny how you boys have suddenly taken a dislike to going out there.”
“Now don’t get peevish,” teased Ned. “We will take you, Coz, if we freeze by the wayside.”
“Did you get my skates?” Nat asked.
“Not done,” the brother replied. “Old Tom is busy enough for ten grinders. Expect we will have a fine race.”
“And I can’t get in shape. Well, I wish I had taken them out to Wakefield’s. He would have had them done days ago. But if we are going to Sanders’s, better get started. I’ll call William to put the cutter up.”
“Here come Ted and Mabel now. They’re sleighing, too,” exclaimed Dorothy. “Won’t we have a jolly party!”
“That’s a neat little cutter,” remarked Ned, glancing out of the window. “And Mabel does look pretty in a red – what do you call that Scotch cap?”
“Tam o’Shanter,” Dorothy helped out. “Yes, it is very becoming. But Neddie, dear?” and her voice questioned.
“Oh, I don’t know,” he replied indifferently. “Mabel was always kind of – witchy. I like that type.”
“And Ted is – so considerate,” Dorothy added with a mock sigh. “I do wonder how Bob and Tavia are getting along?”
“Probably planning suicide by this time – I say planning, you know, not executing. It would be so nice for a boy as good as Bob to be coerced into some wild prank by the wily Tavia.”
“She did not happen, however, to lead you into any,” retorted Dorothy, “and I take it you are a ‘good boy’.”
“Oh, but how hard she tried,” and he feigned regret. “Tavia would have taught me to feed out of her hand, had I not been – so well brought up.”
This bantering occupied the moments between the time Ted’s sleigh glided into view, and its arrival at the door of the Cedars.
“’Lo, ’lo!” exclaimed Mabel, her cheeks matching the scarlet of her Tam o’Shanter.
“Low, low! Sweet and Low!” responded Nat. “Also so low!”
“No – but Milo!” said Ned, with a complimentary look at Mabel. “The Venus mended.”
“‘High low,’” went on Ted. “That’s what it is. A high – low and the game! To go out there to-night in this freeze!”
“Strange thing,” Dorothy murmured, “how young men freeze up – sort of antagonistic convulsion.”
“Oh, come on,” drawled Ned, “when a girl wills, she will – and there’s an end on it.”
It did not take the girls long to comply – Dorothy was out with Ted, Mabel, Nat and Ned before the boys had a chance to relent.
“Those bundles?” questioned Ted, as Dorothy surrounded herself with the things for Emily.
“Now did you ever!” exclaimed Dorothy. “It seems to me everything is displeasing to-day.”
“No offence, I’m sure,” Ted hastened to correct, “but the fact is – we boys had a sort of good time framed up for this afternoon. Not but what we are delighted to be of service – ”
“Why didn’t you say so?” Dorothy asked.
It seemed for the moment that the girls and boys were not to get along in their usual pleasant manner. But the wonderful sleighing, and the delightful afternoon, soon obliterated the threatening difficulties, and a happy, laughing party in each cutter glided over the road, now evenly packed with mid-winter snow.
The small boys along the way occasionally stole a ride on the back runners of the sleighs, or “got a hitch” with sled or bob, thus saving the walk up hill or the jaunt to the ice pond.
“Oh, there’s Dr. Gray!” Dorothy exclaimed suddenly as a gentleman in fur coat and cap was seen hurrying along. “I wonder why he is walking?”
“For his health, likely,” Ted answered. “Doctors know the sort of medicine to take for their own constitutions.”
By this time they were abreast of the physician. Dorothy called out to him:
“Where’s your horse, Doctor?”
“Laid up,” replied the medical man, with a polite greeting. “He slipped yesterday – ”
“Going far?” Ted interrupted, drawing his horse up.
“Out to Sanders’s,” replied the doctor.
“Sanders’s!” repeated Dorothy. “That’s where we’re going. Who’s sick?”
“The baby,” replied the doctor, “and they asked me to hurry.”
“Get in with us,” Ted invited, while Dorothy almost gasped. Little Emily sick! She could scarcely believe it.
Dr. Gray gladly accepted the invitation to ride, and the next cutter with Ned, Nat and Mabel, pulled up along side of Ted’s.
“You may as well turn back,” Dorothy told them. Then she explained that little Emily was sick, and likely would not want her Christmas tree trimmed.
“But I’ll go along,” she said, “I may be able to help, for her mother is sick, even if she is with her.”
After all her preparations, it was a great disappointment to think the child could not enjoy the gifts. Dr. Gray told her, however, that Emily was subject to croup, and that perhaps the spell would not last.
At the house they found everything in confusion. Emily’s sick mother coughed harder at every attempt she made to help the little one, while Mr. Sanders, the child’s grandfather, tried vainly to get water hot on a lukewarm stove.
“Pretty bad, Doc,” he said with a groan, “thought she’d choke to death last night.”
Without waiting to be directed, Dorothy threw aside her heavy coat, drew off her gloves, and was breaking bits of wood in her hands, to hurry the kettle that, being watched, had absolutely refused to boil.
“You can just put that oil on to heat, Miss Dale,” Dr. Gray said, he having bidden the sick woman to keep away from Emily. “We’ll rub her up well with warm oil, and see if we can loosen up that congestion.”
Emily lay on the uneven sofa, her cheeks burning, and her breath jerking in struggles and coughs.
Dorothy found a pan and had the oil hot before the doctor was ready to use it.
“Quite a nurse,” he said, in that pleasant way the country doctor is accustomed to use. “Glad I happened to meet you.”
“I’m glad, too,” Dorothy replied sincerely. “Never mind, Emily, you will have your Christmas tree, as soon as we get the naughty cold cured,” she told the child.
Emily’s eyes brightened a little. The tree still stood in a corner of the room. Outside, Ted was driving up and down the road in evident impatience, but Dorothy was too busy to notice him.
Soon the hot applications took effect, and Emily breathed more freely and regularly. Then the doctor attended to the other patient – the mother. It was a sad Christmas time, and had a depressing effect even on the young spirits of Dorothy. She tried to speak to Emily, but her eyes wandered around at the almost bare room, and noted its untidy appearance. Dishes were piled up on the table, pans stood upon the floor, papers were littered about. How could people live that way? she wondered.
Mrs. Tripp, Emily’s mother, must be a widow, Dorothy thought, and she knew old Mrs. Sanders had died the Winter before.
The doctor had finished with Mrs. Tripp. He glanced anxiously about him. To whom would he give instructions? Mr. Sanders seemed scarcely capable of giving the sick ones the proper care.
Dorothy saw the look of concern on the doctor’s face and she rightly interpreted it.
“If we only could take them to some other place,” she whispered to him. Then she stopped, as a sudden thought seized her.
“Doesn’t Mr. Wolters always make a Christmas gift to the sanitarium?” she asked Dr. Gray.
“Always,” replied the doctor.
“Then why can’t we ask him to have little Emily and her mother taken to the sanitarium? They surely need just such care,” she said quickly.
The doctor slapped one hand on the other, showing that the suggestion had solved the problem. Then he motioned Dorothy out into the room across the small hall. She shivered as she entered it, for it was without stove, or other means of heating.
“If I only had my horse,” he said, “I would go right over to Wolters’s. He would do a great deal for me, and I want that child cared for to-night.”
“I’ll ask Ted to let us take his sleigh,” Dorothy offered, promptly. “He could go with us to the Corners, and then you could drive.”
“And take you?” asked Dr. Gray. “I am sure you young folks have a lot to do this afternoon.”
“No matter about that,” persisted Dorothy. “If I can help, I am only too glad to do it. And Mr. Wolters is on Aunt Winnie’s executive board. He might listen to my appeal.”
There was neither time nor opportunity for further conversation, so Dorothy hastily got into her things, and soon she was in Ted’s sleigh again, huddled close to Dr. Gray in his big, fur coat.
The plan was unfolded to Ted, and he, anxious to get back to his friends, willingly agreed to walk from the Corners, and there turn the cutter over to the charity workers.
“But Dorothy,” he objected, “I know they will all claim I should have insisted on your coming back with me. They will say you will kill yourself with charity, and all that sort of thing.”
“Then say I will be home within an hour,” Dorothy directed, as Ted jumped on the bob that a number of boys were dragging up the hill. “Good-bye, and thank you for the rig.”
“One hour, mind,” Ted called back. “You can drive Bess, I know.”
“Of course,” Dorothy shouted. Then Bess was headed for The Briars, the country home of the millionaire Wolters.
“Suppose he has already made his gift,” Dorothy demurred, as she wrapped the fur robe closely about her feet, “and says he can’t guarantee any more.”
“Then I guess he will have to make another,” said the doctor. “I would not be responsible for the life of that child out there in that shack.”
“If he agrees, how will you get Mrs. Tripp and Emily out to the sanitarium?” Dorothy asked.
“Have to ’phone to Lakeside, and see if we can get the ambulance,” he replied. “That’s the only way to move them safely.”
It seemed to Dorothy that her plan was more complicated than she had imagined it would be, but it was Christmas time, and doing good for others was in the very atmosphere.
“It will be a new kind of Christmas tree,” observed the doctor. “But she’s a cunning little one – she deserves to be kept alive.”
“Indeed she does,” Dorothy said, “and I’m glad if I can help any.”
“Why I never would have thought of the plan,” said the doctor. “I had been thinking all the time we ought to do something, but Wolters’s Christmas gift never crossed my mind. Here we are. My, but this is a great place!” he finished. And the next moment Dorothy had jumped out of the cutter and was at the door of Mr. Ferdinand Wolters.
