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Page 62
"Go out on the ponies for awhile," she said, as she left the three girls
sitting disconsolately on the floor. "Go out and get some of this summer
sunshine into your faces and voices so that you can bring it back to
Elizabeth. She will need all that you can bring her, poor child; so,
instead of brooding over your own feelings, think of something that you
can do to cheer her up."
In a little while there was a clatter of ponies' hoofs down the avenue,
and Mrs. Sherman, sitting by the window in Betty's room, waved her hand
to Eugenia, Joyce, and the Little Colonel as they rode away. They were
gone all morning, and when they came back the June sunshine had done its
work. Their faces were bright and smiling, and they giggled continuously
as they bumped into each other, running up the stairs.
Betty's door was open, and to their surprise they heard a little laugh
as they stopped to peep in. She was lying back among the pillows with
bandaged eyes, but there was a smile on her lips.
"Come in, girls," she cried. "Godmother and I are making alphabet
rhymes. We started at A, and have been taking turns. She has just made a
good one: 'P is a pie-man, portly and proud, pugnaciously
prattling'--What's the rest of it, godmother? You tell them. I have
forgotten."
But Mrs. Sherman's rhyme was broken short in an astonished exclamation,
as her glance fell on the Little Colonel.
"Why, Lloyd Sherman!" she cried. "What have you been doing? Your dress
is torn to tatters, and you are so dirty and dusty that I can scarcely
believe that you are my child!"
The Little Colonel screwed herself around to look at the back of her
dress-skirt, which was torn into a dozen ragged strips, and fluttered
behind her in long fringes. There was a three-cornered tear on the
shoulder and a hole in the elbow of her sleeve.
"Reckon I must have toah it gettin' through a bobwiah fence," she
answered, cheerfully. "But, look at Eugenia! She's as much of a sight as
I am, with her hair hangin' all in her eyes, like an ole witch, and that
scratch across her face, and her stockings full of burrs."
"Joyce is nearly as bad!" cried Eugenia; "both hair ribbons gone, the
heel lost off one shoe, grass stains on her dress, and her face red as
a turkey gobbler's, from running so fast."
"Where _have_ you all been, and what have you been doing?" demanded Mrs.
Sherman so emphatically that, with much giggling and exclaiming, they
all began to talk at once.
"We met the boys ovah on the pike," began the Little Colonel, "Malcolm
and Keith and Robby, and we were all ridin' along as polite as anything,
when the boys began to tell about the good times they used to have
playin' Indian."
"But first," interrupted Joyce, "Keith told about the time they tied his
little cousin Ginger to a tree in the woods, and left her there until it
was so dark she nearly had a spasm."
"Yes," said Eugenia, "and I said what a pity it was that we were too old
to play Indian; that I had had the blues all day, and felt that nothing
would do me so much good as to get out some place where nobody could
hear, and yell and carry on at the top of my voice. And Malcolm said
that, just for once, supposing we'd pretend like we were ten years old,
instead of thirteen, and pitch in and have a good ripping, tearing old
game of Indian. It was away up the pike, where there was nothing in
sight but a few farmhouses, scattered along the road, and it didn't
seem as if it would make any difference, so we said we would."
"First thing I knew," broke in Joyce, "Robby Moore gave an outlandish
war-whoop right in my ear, that nearly deafened me, and grabbed me by my
hair, yelling he was going to tomahawk me. And I saw Eugenia go sailing
up the road as fast as her horse could carry her, with Keith after her,
swinging on to those two long black braids of hers. You see Lloyd had
the advantage of us with her short hair. They couldn't scalp her so
easily; but Malcolm chased after her like all possessed."
"Maybe you think it wasn't excitin'," said the Little Colonel. "I felt
like a real suah 'nuff Indian was aftah me, and I screeched bloody
murdah till you could have heard me almost to the old mill."
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