What Katy Did by Susan Coolidge (best novels to read in english txt) 📖
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“Tell her ye’re busy, and can’t see her,” suggested Bridget; “there’s no dinner nor nothing, you know.”
The Katy of two years ago would probably have jumped at this idea. But the Katy of to-day was more considerate.
“N-o,” she said; “I don’t like to do that. We must just make the best of it, Bridget. Run down, Clover, dear, that’s a good girl! and tell Mrs. Worrett that the dining-room is all in confusion, but that we’re going to have lunch here, and, after she’s rested, I should be glad to have her come up. And, oh, Clovy! give her a fan the first thing. She’ll be so hot. Bridget, you can bring up the luncheon just the same, only take out some canned peaches, by way of a dessert, and make Mrs. Worrett a cup of tea. She drinks tea always, I believe.
“I can’t bear to send the poor old lady away when she has come so far,” she explained to Elsie, after the others were gone. “Pull the rocking-chair a little this way, Elsie. And oh! push all those little chairs back against the wall. Mrs. Worrett broke down in one the last time she was here—don’t you recollect?”
It took some time to cool Mrs. Worrett off, so nearly twenty minutes passed before a heavy, creaking step on the stairs announced that the guest was on her way up. Elsie began to giggle. Mrs. Worrett always made her giggle. Katy had just time to give her a warning glance before the door opened.
Mrs. Worrett was the most enormously fat person ever seen. Nobody dared to guess how much she weighed, but she looked as if it might be a thousand pounds. Her face was extremely red. In the coldest weather she appeared hot, and on a mild day she seemed absolutely ready to melt. Her bonnet-strings were flying loose as she came in, and she fanned herself all the way across the room, which shook as she walked.
“Well, my dear,” she said, as she plumped herself into the rocking-chair, “and how do you do?”
“Very well, thank you,” replied Katy, thinking that she never saw Mrs. Worrett look half so fat before, and wondering how she was to entertain her.
“And how’s your Pa?” inquired Mrs. Worrett. Katy answered politely, and then asked after Mrs. Worrett’s own health.
“Well, I’m so’s to be round,” was the reply, which had the effect of sending Elsie off into a fit of convulsive laughter behind Katy’s chair.
“I had business at the bank,” continued the visitor, “and I thought while I was about it I’d step up to Miss Petingill’s and see if I couldn’t get her to come and let out my black silk. It was made quite a piece back, and I seem to have fleshed up since then, for I can’t make the hooks and eyes meet at all. But when I got there, she was out, so I’d my walk for nothing. Do you know where she’s sewing now?”
“No,” said Katy, feeling her chair shake, and keeping her own countenance with difficulty, “she was here for three days last week to make Johnnie a school-dress. But I haven’t heard anything about her since. Elsie, don’t you want to run down stairs and ask Bridget to bring a—a—a glass of iced water for Mrs. Worrett? She looks warm after her walk.”
Elsie, dreadfully ashamed, made a bolt from the room, and hid herself in the hall closet to have her laugh out. She came back after a while, with a perfectly straight face. Luncheon was brought up. Mrs. Worrett made a good meal, and seemed to enjoy everything. She was so comfortable that she never stirred till four o’clock! Oh, how long that afternoon did seem to the poor girls, sitting there and trying to think of something to say to their vast visitor!
At last Mrs. Worrett got out of her chair, and prepared to depart.
“Well,” she said, tying her bonnet-strings, “I’ve had a good rest, and feel all the better for it. Ain’t some of you young folks coming out to see me one of these days? I’d like to have you, first-rate, if you will. ‘Tain’t every girl would know how to take care of a fat old woman, and make her feel to home, as you have me, Katy. I wish your aunt could see you all as you are now. She’d be right pleased; I know that.”
Somehow, this sentence rang pleasantly in Katy’s ears.
“Ah! don’t laugh at her,” she said later in the evening, when the children, after their tea in the clean, fresh-smelling dining-room, were come up to sit with her, and Cecy, in her pretty pink lawn and white shawl, had dropped in to spend an hour or two; “she’s a real kind old woman, and I don’t like to have you. It isn’t her fault that she’s fat. And Aunt Izzie was fond of her, you know. It is doing something for her when we can show a little attention to one of her friends. I was sorry when she came, but now it’s over, I’m glad.”
“It feels so nice when it stops aching,” quoted Elsie, mischievously, while Cecy whispered to Clover.
“Isn’t Katy sweet?”
“Isn’t she!” replied Clover. “I wish I was half so good. Sometimes I think I shall really be sorry if she ever gets well. She’s such a dear old darling to us all, sitting there in her chair, that it wouldn’t seem so nice to have her anywhere else. But then, I know it’s horrid in me. And I don’t believe she’d be different, or grow slam-bang and horrid, like some of the girls, even if she were well.”
“Of course she wouldn’t!” replied Cecy.
It was about six weeks after this, that one day, Clover and Elsie were busy down stairs, they were startled by the sound of Katy’s bell ringing in a sudden and agitated manner. Both ran up two steps at a time, to see what was wanted.
Katy sat in her chair, looking very much flushed and excited.
“Oh, girls!” she exclaimed, “what do you think? I stood up!”
“What?” cried Clover and Elsie.
“I really did! I stood up on my feet! by myself!”
The others were too much astonished to speak, so Katy went on explaining.
“It was all at once, you see. Suddenly, I had the feeling that if I tried I could, and almost before I thought, I did try, and there I was, up and out of the chair. Only I kept hold of the arm all the time! I don’t know how I got back, I was so frightened. Oh, girls!”—and Katy buried her face in her hands.
“Do you think I shall ever be able to do it again?” she asked, looking up with wet eyes.
“Why, of course you will!” said Clover; while Elsie danced about, crying out anxiously: “Be careful! Do be careful!”
Katy tried, but the spring was gone. She could not move out of the chair at all. She began to wonder if she had dreamed the whole thing.
But next day, when Clover happened to be in the room, she heard a sudden exclamation, and turning, there stood Katy, absolutely on her feet.
“Papa! papa!” shrieked Clover, rushing down stairs. “Dorry, John, Elsie—come! Come and see!”
Papa was out, but all the rest crowded up at once. This time Katy found no trouble in “doing it again.” It seemed as if her will had been asleep; and now that it had waked up, the limbs recognized its orders and obeyed them.
When Papa came in, he was as much excited as any of the children. He walked round and round the chair, questioning Katy and making her stand up and sit down.
“Am I really going to get well?” she asked, almost in a whisper.
“Yes, my love, I think you are,” replied Dr. Carr, seizing Phil and giving him a toss into the air. None of the children had ever before seen Papa behave so like a boy. But pretty soon, noticing Katy’s burning cheeks and excited eyes, he calmed himself, sent the others all away, and sat down to soothe and quiet her with gentle words.
“I think it is coming, my darling,” he said, “but it will take time, and you must have a great deal of patience. After being such a good child all the years, I am sure you won’t fail now. Remember, any imprudence will put you back. You must be content to gain a very little at a time. There is no royal road to walking any more than there is to learning. Every baby finds that out.”
“Oh, Papa!” said Katy, “it’s no matter if it takes a year—if only I get well at last.”
How happy she was that night—too happy to sleep. Papa noticed the dark circles under her eyes in the morning, and shook his head.
“You must be careful,” he told her, “or you’ll be laid up again. A course of fever would put you back for years.”
Katy knew Papa was right, and she was careful, though it was by no means easy to be so with that new life tingling in every limb. Her progress was slow, as Dr. Carr had predicted. At first she only stood on her feet a few seconds, then a minute, then five minutes, holding tightly all the while by the chair. Next she ventured to let go the chair, and stand alone. After that she began to walk a step at a time, pushing a chair before her, as children do when they are learning the use of their feet. Clover and Elsie hovered about her as she moved, like anxious mammas. It was droll, and a little pitiful, to see tall Katy with her feeble, unsteady progress, and the active figures of the little sisters following her protectingly. But Katy did not consider it either droll or pitiful; to her it was simply delightful—the most delightful thing possible. No baby of a year old was ever prouder of his first steps than she.
Gradually she grew adventurous, and ventured on a bolder flight. Clover, running up stairs one day to her own room, stood transfixed at the sight of Katy sitting there, flushed, panting, but enjoying the surprise she caused.
“You see,” she explained, in an apologizing tone, “I was seized with a desire to explore. It is such a time since I saw any room but my own! But oh dear, how long that hall is! I had forgotten it could be so long. I shall have to take a good rest before I go back.”
Katy did take a good rest, but she was very tired next day. The experiment, however, did no harm. In the course of two or three weeks, she was able to walk all over the second story.
This was a great enjoyment. It was like reading an interesting book to see all the new things, and the little changes. She was forever wondering over something.
“Why, Dorry,” she would say, “what a pretty book-shelf! When did you get it?”
“That old thing! Why, I’ve had it two years. Didn’t I ever tell you about it?”
“Perhaps you did,” Katy would reply, “but you see I never saw it before, so it made no impression.”
By the end of August she was grown so strong, that she began to talk about going down stairs. But Papa said, “Wait.”
“It will tire you much more than walking about on a level,” he explained, “you had better put it off a little while—till you are quite sure of your feet.”
“I
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