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Page 31
Elizabeth Ann took up her cup and poured some of the thick, hot syrup
out on the hard snow, making loops and curves as she poured. It
stiffened and hardened at once, and she lifted up a great coil of it,
threw her head back, and let it drop into her mouth. Concentrated
sweetness of summer days was in that mouthful, part of it still hot and
aromatic, part of it icy and wet with melting snow. She crunched it all
together with her strong, child's teeth into a delicious, big lump and
sucked on it dreamily, her eyes on the rim of Hemlock Mountain, high
above her there, the snow on it bright golden in the sunlight. Uncle
Henry had promised to take her up to the top as soon as the snow went
off. She wondered what the top of a mountain would be like. Uncle Henry
had said the main thing was that you could see so much of the world at
once. He said it was too queer the way your own house and big barn and
great fields looked like little toy things that weren't of any account.
It was because you could see so much more than just the ...
She heard an imploring whine, and a cold nose was thrust into her hand!
Why, there was old Shep begging for his share of waxed sugar. He loved
it, though it did stick to his teeth so! She poured out another lot and
gave half of it to Shep. It immediately stuck his jaws together tight,
and he began pawing at his mouth and shaking his head till Betsy had to
laugh. Then he managed to pull his jaws apart and chewed loudly and
visibly, tossing his head, opening his mouth wide till Betsy could see
the sticky, brown candy draped in melting festoons all over his big
white teeth and red gullet. Then with a gulp he had swallowed it all
down and was whining for more, striking softly at the little girl's
skirt with his forepaw. "Oh, you eat it too fast!" cried Betsy, but she
shared her next lot with him too. The sun had gone down over Hemlock
Mountain by this time, and the big slope above her was all deep blue
shadow. The mountain looked much higher now as the dusk began to fall,
and loomed up bigger and bigger as though it reached to the sky. It was
no wonder houses looked small from its top. Betsy ate the last of her
sugar, looking up at the quiet giant there, towering grandly above her.
There was no lump in her throat now. And, although she still thought she
did not know what in the world Cousin Ann meant by saying that about
Hemlock Mountain and her examination, it's my opinion that she had made
a very good beginning of an understanding.
She was just picking up her cup to take it back to the sap-house when
Shep growled a little and stood with his ears and tail up, looking down
the road. Something was coming down that road in the blue, clear
twilight, something that was making a very queer noise. It sounded
almost like somebody crying. It WAS somebody crying! It was a child
crying. It was a little, little girl. ... Betsy could see her
now ... stumbling along and crying as though her heart would break. Why,
it was little Molly, her own particular charge at school, whose reading
lesson she heard every day. Betsy and Shep ran to meet her. "What's the
matter, Molly? What's the matter?" Betsy knelt down and put her arms
around the weeping child. "Did you fall down? Did you hurt you? What are
you doing 'way off here? Did you lose your way?"
"I don't want to go away! I don't want to go away!" said Molly over and
over, clinging tightly to Betsy. It was a long time before Betsy could
quiet her enough to find out what had happened. Then she made out
between Molly's sobs that her mother had been taken suddenly sick and
had to go away to a hospital, and that left nobody at home to take care
of Molly, and she was to be sent away to some strange relatives in the
city who didn't want her at all and who said so right out ... .
Oh, Elizabeth Ann knew all about that! and her heart swelled big with
sympathy. For a moment she stood again out on the sidewalk in front of
the Lathrop house with old Mrs. Lathrop's ungracious white head bobbing
from a window, and knew again that ghastly feeling of being unwanted.
Oh, she knew why little Molly was crying! And she shut her hands
together hard and made up her mind that she WOULD help her out!
[Illustration: "What's the matter, Molly? What's the matter?"]
Do you know what she did, right off, without thinking about it? She
didn't go and look up Aunt Abigail. She didn't wait till Uncle Henry
came back from his round of emptying sap buckets into the big tub on his
sled. As fast as her feet could carry her she flew back to Cousin Ann in
the sap-house. I can't tell you (except again that Cousin Ann was Cousin
Ann) why it was that Betsy ran so fast to her and was so sure that
everything would be all right as soon as Cousin Ann knew about it; but
whatever the reason was it was a good one, for, though Cousin Ann did
not stop to kiss Molly or even to look at her more than one sharp first
glance, she said after a moment's pause, during which she filled a syrup
can and screwed the cover down very tight: "Well, if her folks will let
her stay, how would you like to have Molly come and stay with us till
her mother gets back from the hospital? Now you've got a room of your
own, I guess if you wanted to you could have her sleep with you."
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