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Page 44
"You wouldn't think that having measles was so funny," said Betty, when
the trays had been carried out, "if you had had it the way I did. It was
in the middle of harvest, so nobody had time to take care of me. Cousin
Hetty had so much to do that she couldn't come up-stairs many times a
day to wait on me. She'd just look in the door and ask if I wanted
anything, and hurry away again. My little room in the west gable was
_so_ hot. The sun beat against it all afternoon, and the water in the
pitcher wouldn't stay cool. Sometimes I'd cry till my throat ached,
wishing that I had a mother to sit beside me, and put her cool hands
against my face, and rub my back when it ached, and sing me to sleep.
And after I got better, and my appetite began to come back, I'd lie and
watch the door for hours, it seemed to me, waiting for Cousin Hetty to
come up with my meals. I'd think of all sorts of dainty things that I
had read about, until my mouth watered. Then when she came, maybe there
would be nothing but a cup of tea slopped all over the saucer, and a
piece of burnt toast. Or maybe it would be a bowl of soup half cold, or
too salty. Poor Cousin Hetty was so busy she couldn't bother to fix
things for me. I couldn't help crying when she'd gone down-stairs. I'd
be so disappointed.
"But the worst thing of all was what Davy did one day. He wanted to be
kind and nice, and do something for me, so he went off to the pond, and
sat there on the hot sunny bank all morning, trying to catch me a fish.
To everybody's surprise he did catch one about eleven o'clock,--a
slimy-looking little catfish,--and came running straight up to my room
with it in his dirty little hands. He smelled so fishy I could scarcely
stand it, for it was the day I felt the very worst. But he didn't know
that. He climbed up on the bed with it, and held it almost under my nose
for me to see. He was so happy that his dirty little face was all one
big smile. He kept saying, as he dangled it around, 'Ain't he pretty,
Betty? I ketched him. I ketched him for you, 'cause you're sick.'
"Ugh! I can smell that fish yet! I smelled it all afternoon, for he took
it down-stairs to have it cleaned and cooked. About one o'clock he came
back up-stairs after I had had my lunch, and there he had it on a plate,
fried up into a crisp. I couldn't have swallowed any of it, to save me,
but I couldn't disappoint the little fellow when he had tried so hard to
please me, so I had to ask him to leave it, and told him maybe I would
feel more like eating after I had slept awhile. So he went out perfectly
satisfied, and I lay there, growing sicker every minute from the smell
of that fried fish. At last I gathered up strength enough to throw it
out of the window to the cat, but the plate still smelled of it, and
nobody came in to take it away until after dark.
"Cousin Hetty was dreadfully worried when she found that Davy had been
in my room, but he didn't take the measles, and that was the only time I
saw him while I was sick. I was alone all the time. You can't imagine
how doleful it was to stay in that hot dark room all day by myself."
"You poor little Bettykins!" sighed Joyce, sympathetically. "It's too
bad you can't have the measles all over again with us, here at the house
party. It really isn't a bit bad now. I am enjoying it immensely."
As she spoke there was the sound of a horse's hoofs in the avenue, and a
moment later a shrill whistle sounded under the window.
"Hello, Measles," shouted a merry voice.
"It's Rob!" exclaimed Lloyd. "Hello yourself!" she called back,
laughingly. "Come in and have some, won't you?"
"No, thank you," he answered. "You are too generous. But I say, Lloyd,
let down a basket or something, won't you? I've got a surprise here for
you all."
"Take the scrap-basket, Betty," said Lloyd, excitedly pointing to a
fancy little basket made of braided sweet grass, and tied with many
bows. "My skipping-rope is in the closet. You can let it down by that if
you tie it to the handles."
A moment later Betty's smiling face appeared at the window, and the
basket was lowered to the boy on the horse below.
"I can't reach it without standing up on the saddle," called Rob. "Whoa,
there, Ben! Easy, old boy!" With feet wide apart to balance himself, Rob
carefully dropped something from the basket he carried on his arm to the
one that Betty dangled on a level with his eyes.
"One for you, too, Betty," the girls heard him say, but he had cantered
off down the avenue before they discovered what it was he had left for
them.
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