第4章 Two Penitents(1)

Jack and Jill never cared to say much about the night which followed the first coasting party of the season,for it was the saddest and the hardest their short lives had ever known.Jack suffered most in body;for the setting of the broken leg was such a painful job,that it wrung several sharp cries from him,and made Frank,who helped,quite weak and white with sympathy,when it was over.The wounded head ached dreadfully,and the poor boy felt as if bruised all over,for he had the worst of the fall.Dr.

Whiting spoke cheerfully of the case,and made so light of broken legs,that Jack innocently asked if he should not be up in a week or so.

"Well,no;it usually takes twenty-one days for bones to knit,and young ones make quick work of it,"answered the doctor,with a last scientific tuck to the various bandages,which made Jack feel like a hapless chicken trussed for the spit.

"Twenty-one days!Three whole weeks in bed!I shouldn't call that quick work,"groaned the dismayed patient,whose experience of illness had been limited.

"It is a forty days job,young man,and you must make up your mind to bear it like a hero.We will do our best;but next time,look before you leap,and save your bones.Good-night;you'll feel better in the morning.No jigs,remember";and off went the busy doctor for another look at Jill,who had been ordered to bed and left to rest till the other case was attended to.

Anyone would have thought Jack's plight much the worse,but the doctor looked more sober over Jill's hurt back than the boy's compound fractures;and the poor little girl had a very bad quarter of an hour while he was trying to discover the extent 0f the injury,"Keep her quiet,and time will show how much damage is done,"was all he said in her hearing;but if she had known that he told Mrs.Pecq he feared serious consequences,she would not have wondered why her mother cried as she rubbed the numb limbs and paced the pillows so tenderly.

Jill suffered most in her mind;for only a sharp stab of pain now and then reminded her of her body;but her remorseful little soul gave her no peace for thinking of Jack,whose bruises and breakages her lively fancy painted in the darkest colors.

"Oh,don't be good to me,Mammy;I made him go,and now he's hurt dreadfully,and may die;and it is all my fault,and everybody ought to hate me,"sobbed poor Jill,as a neighbor left the room after reporting in a minute manner how Jack screamed when his leg was set,and how Frank was found white as a sheet,with his head under the pump,while Gus restored the tone of his friend's nerves,by pumping as if the house was on fire.

"Whist,my lass,and go to sleep.Take a sup of the good wine Mrs.

Minot sent,for you are as cold as a clod,and it breaks my heart to see my Janey so.""I can't go to sleep;I don't see how Jack's mother could send my anything when I've half killed him.I want to be cold and ache and have horrid things done to me.Oh,if I ever get out of this bed I'll be the best girl in the world,to pay for this.See if I ain t!"and Jill gave such a decided nod that her tears flew all about the pillow like a shower.

"You d better begin at once,for you won't get out of that bed for a long while,I m afraid,my lamb,"sighed her mother,unable to conceal the anxiety that lay so heavy on her heart.

"Am I hurt badly,Mammy?"

"I fear it,lass."

"I'm glad of it;I ought to be worse than Jack,and I hope I am.I'll bear it well,and be good right away.Sing,Mammy,and I'll try to go to sleep to please you."Jill shut her eyes with sudden and unusual meekness,and before her mother had crooned half a dozen verses of an old ballad,the little black head lay still upon the pillow,and repentant Jill was fast asleep with a red mitten in her hand.

Mrs.Pecq was an Englishwoman who had left Montreal at the death of her husband,a French Canadian,and had come to live in the tiny cottage which stood near Mrs.Minot's big house,separated only by an arbor-vitae hedge.A sad,silent person,who had seen better days,but said nothing about them,and earned her bread by sewing,nursing,work in the factory,or anything that came in her way,being anxious to educate her little girl.Now,as she sat beside the bed in the small,poor room,that hope almost died within her,for here was the child laid up for months,probably,and the one ambition and pleasure of the solitary woman's life was to see Janey Pecq's name over all the high marks in the school-reports she proudly brought home.

"She'll win through,please Heaven,and I'll see my lass a gentlewoman yet,thanks to the good friend in yonder,who will never let her want for care,"thought the poor soul,looking out into the gloom where a long ray of light streamed from the great house warm and comfortable upon the cottage,like the spirit of kindness which made the inmates friends and neighbors.

Meantime,that other mother sat by her boy's bed as anxious but with better hope,for Mrs.Minot made trouble sweet and helpful by the way in which she bore it;and her boys were learning of her how to find silver linings to the clouds that must come into the bluest skies.