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Page 7
She sat very still on the high lumber seat, feeling very forlorn and
neglected. Her feet dangled high above the floor of the wagon. She felt
herself to be in the most dangerous place she had ever dreamed of in her
worst dreams. Oh, why wasn't Aunt Frances there to take care of her! It
was just like one of her bad dreams--yes, it was horrible! She would
fall, she would roll under the wheels and be crushed to ... She looked up
at Uncle Henry with the wild, strained eyes of nervous terror which
always brought Aunt Frances to her in a rush to "hear all about it," to
sympathize, to reassure.
Uncle Henry looked down at her soberly, his hard, weather-beaten old
face quite unmoved. "Here, you drive, will you, for a piece?" he said
briefly, putting the reins into her hands, hooking his spectacles over
his ears, and drawing out a stubby pencil and a bit of paper. "I've got
some figgering to do. You pull on the left-hand rein to make 'em go to
the left and t'other way for t'other way, though 'tain't likely we'll
meet any teams."
Elizabeth Ann had been so near one of her wild screams of terror that
now, in spite of her instant absorbed interest in the reins, she gave a
queer little yelp. She was all ready with the explanation, her
conversations with Aunt Frances having made her very fluent in
explanations of her own emotions. She would tell Uncle Henry about how
scared she had been, and how she had just been about to scream and
couldn't keep back that one little ... But Uncle Henry seemed not to have
heard her little howl, or, if he had, didn't think it worth
conversation, for he ... oh, the horses were CERTAINLY going to one side!
She hastily decided which was her right hand (she had never been forced
to know it so quickly before) and pulled furiously on that rein. The
horses turned their hanging heads a little, and, miraculously, there
they were in the middle of the road again.
Elizabeth Ann drew a long breath of relief and pride, and looked to
Uncle Henry for praise. But he was busily setting down figures as though
he were getting his 'rithmetic lesson for the next day and had not
noticed ... Oh, there they were going to the left again! This time, in her
flurry, she made a mistake about which hand was which and pulled wildly
on the left line! The horses docilely walked off the road into a shallow
ditch, the wagon tilted ... help! Why didn't Uncle Henry help! Uncle Henry
continued intently figuring on the back of his envelope.
Elizabeth Ann, the perspiration starting out on her forehead, pulled on
the other line. The horses turned back up the little slope, the wheel
grated sickeningly against the wagonbox--she was SURE they would tip
over! But there! somehow there they were in the road, safe and sound,
with Uncle Henry adding up a column of figures. If he only knew, thought
the little girl, if he only KNEW the danger he had been in, and how he
had been saved ... ! But she must think of some way to remember, for sure,
which her right hand was, and avoid that hideous mistake again.
And then suddenly something inside Elizabeth Ann's head stirred and
moved. It came to her, like a clap, that she needn't know which was
right or left at all. If she just pulled the way she wanted them to go--
the horses would never know whether it was the right or the left rein!
It is possible that what stirred inside her head at that moment was her
brain, waking up. She was nine years old, and she was in the third A
grade at school, but that was the first time she had ever had a whole
thought of her very own. At home, Aunt Frances had always known exactly
what she was doing, and had helped her over the hard places before she
even knew they were there; and at school her teachers had been carefully
trained to think faster than the scholars. Somebody had always been
explaining things to Elizabeth Ann so industriously that she had never
found out a single thing for herself before. This was a very small
discovery, but an original one. Elizabeth Ann was as excited about it as
a mother-bird over the first egg that hatches.
She forgot how afraid she was of Uncle Henry, and poured out to him her
discovery. "It's not right or left that matters!" she ended
triumphantly; "it's which way you want to go!" Uncle Henry looked at her
attentively as she talked, eyeing her sidewise over the top of one
spectacle-glass. When she finished--"Well, now, that's so," he admitted,
and returned to his arithmetic.
It was a short remark, shorter than any Elizabeth Ann had ever heard
before. Aunt Frances and her teachers always explained matters at
length. But it had a weighty, satisfying ring to it. The little girl
felt the importance of having her statement recognized. She turned back
to her driving.
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