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Page 43
"Nevah mine, honey," said Mom Beck. "It'll not be as bad as you think.
The measles is done broke out on you beautiful--as thick as hops."
"But I hate this dahk room," wailed the Little Colonel, "and it's so
poky and tiahsome, and I am so hot and I ache all ovah--"
Then Betty heard Mrs. Sherman go into the room, and the fretting ceased
as her cool hand stroked the hot little forehead, and her voice began a
slumber song. It was the "White Seal's Lullaby."
"'Oh, hush thee my baby, the night is behind us,
And black are the waters that sparkled so green.'"
How often she had read it in her "Jungle Book," but she had no idea how
beautiful it was until she heard it as her godmother was singing it.
There was the slow, restful, swinging motion of the waves in that
music; the coolness of the deep green seas. How quickly it took away the
fever and the aching, and left the healing of sleep in its wake!
"'Where billow meets billow, there soft be thy pillow.
Oh, weary wee flipperling, curl at thy ease!
The storm shall not wake thee, nor shark overtake thee,
Asleep in the arms of the slow swinging seas.'"
Betty, in her room across the hall, leaned her head against the
window-sill and looked out into the darkness. There were tears in her
eyes. "Oh," she whispered, with a quivering lip, "if I only had a mother
to sing to me like that, I wouldn't mind having the measles or anything
else!"
* * * * *
The worst was over in a few days, and then two cots were carried into
Eugenia's room for Lloyd and Joyce to occupy during the day. The windows
still had to be kept darkened, but the girls managed to find a great
deal to amuse themselves with. They would not have fared so well had it
not been for Betty. Many an hour she spent in the dim room, when the
summer was calling to her on every breeze to come out in its sunshine
and be glad in its cheer. Many a game of checkers she played with the
exacting invalids, when she longed to be riding over the country on
Lad. And she read aloud by the single ray of light admitted through the
shutters, and told stories until her voice was husky.
"It's fun, isn't it?" said Eugenia, one day when they were waiting for
their lunch to be brought up. "I am always wondering what is coming
next, for Cousin Elizabeth has never missed a day, sending up some
surprise with our meals. It is a continual surprise-party."
"We'll be dreadfully spoiled," said Joyce, "like a little boy at home
that I know. He insists on keeping Christmas the year around. As he is
the only child, and they'd give him the moon if they could reach it,
they let him hang up his stocking every night, and every morning there
is a present in it for him."
"Cousin Elizabeth is spoiling us just the same way," said Eugenia.
"Those little souvenir spoons she sent up with the chocolate yesterday
are perfect darlings. I think the world of mine."
"I wonder what the surprise will be to-day," said Lloyd, as the jingling
of silver and tinkling of ice in glasses sounded on the stairs.
"I know," said Betty, running to open the door for the procession of
tray bearers. "It is conundrum salad. I helped godmother make it."
Eliot, Mom Beck, and the housemaid entered in solemn file, each bearing
a tray containing a simple lunch, in the centre of which was a fancy
plate containing a pile of crisp green lettuce.
"Isn't that a dainty dish to set before the king!" exclaimed Joyce,
examining her conundrum salad. "Oh, girls, how that did fool me. I could
have sworn that those were real lettuce leaves, and they are only paper.
But what a clever imitation, and what a lot of conundrums written
inside!"
"See if you can guess this one?" cried Eugenia. "Isn't it funny?" and
she read a clever one that set them all to thinking. There was much
laughter when they finally had to give it up, and she told them the
answer.
"Now listen to this," said Lloyd next, and then it was Joyce's turn, and
the lunch was eaten in the midst of much laughing and many bright
remarks that the salad called forth.
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