Saying this, she was about to turn away, when Charlie's eyes opened.

"That you--you, aunty?"

"Yes; why?"

"I thought it was a dream. I had a dream, and thought we gave the down-townies an awful scare."

"You did? Was that what you were smiling at? I mean just now."

"I guess so. And then I believe we were going to give three cheers."

"Well, do you feel like getting up?"

"Y-e-s."

He rose on his elbows, but sank back again.

"I guess, if you have no objection, aunty, I will lie a little longer."

"I guess you had better, for you took cold last night out in the porch.

Would you like to take your breakfast in bed, and have my little table that I lend to people who are sick in bed?"

"O, yes."

"And would you like to have a piece of toast, a little tea, and an orange?"

"O, yes. You are the best aunty in the world."

"Am I, dear?"

Aunt Stanshy was not very demonstrative, so that this "dear" was exceedingly precious to the warm-hearted Charlie, as was also a small hug that she gave him. While she was preparing his breakfast Charlie lay quietly in bed, and heard the sound of the rain on the slanting roof. To a tired boy in bed, and longing to have some excuse for absence from school, what music is sweeter than the sound of rain on the roof? Let it be a real north-easter sweeping in from the sea, pushing along a fleet of many clouds packed with a heavy cargo of rain, and, as it advances, let this wind sound many big, hoa.r.s.e trumpets all about the houses and barns, up and down the streets! An organ in church played by Prof. Jump-up-and-down is nothing compared with such a north-easter; Charlie heard the grand music of the wind. By and by he heard Aunt Stanshy's step on the stairs.

She came slowly up, up, and then Charlie saw her turning from the entry into his room, bringing the sick-table and Charlie's breakfast She bolstered him up in bed, putting two or three fat pillows behind his back.

Then she put the little sick-table before him. One side had been hollowed in, so that an invalid could draw it close about his body. Charlie was now the invalid to do that thing. What tea! what toast! what an orange!

"Now that you have some strength, do you want to dress and then come down and sit with me in the sitting-room and see me iron?" asked Aunt Stanshy, after breakfast.

"O, yes, and not go to school?"

"No school to-day, when that cold is on you."

Charlie crawled into his clothes and went down stairs to the sitting-room.

Aunt Stanshy was ironing. She generally did her ironing in the sitting-room, as the kitchen was very small, and, on a hot day, it was so hot there that one felt like sizzling at the touch of water.

"Here are some picture-books for you."

"O, thanks, thanks, aunty!"

"One of those picture-books is about Indian wars."

"Did you ever see an Injun?"

"Not the raving, tearing, tomahawk kind."

"I shouldn't want to see that one."

"Several years ago sort of tame ones used to come round and have baskets to sell. My great-great-grandmother had quite an adventure with the real kind once."

"O, tell it to me!"

Opening his eyes to that peculiar width appropriate to the hearing of an Indian story, Charlie intently listened.

"My great-great-grandmother was all alone one day in the house, for the men-folks had gone to market or somewhere. She happened to be looking out of the window, when she saw an Indian looking over the fence. What a customer! He was an ugly-looking crittur, I don't doubt. What could she do, for he might be tomahawking her in less than no time? Wimmin folks, in them days, were not like Miss Persnips, that keeps the little thread-and-needle store on the corner, without any snap to 'em. My great-great-grandmother just tore round that room at a lively rate. She slammed the shutters, she banged about the chairs. Then she pretended that there were lots of men-folks in the house, and she kept calling to Tom, Bill, Jerry, Nehemiah. O, she had a string of 'em, all on her tongue's end! I don't know but she pointed a gun out of the winder, man-fashion.

What did that crittur do but gather up his traps and walk off as harmless as a b.u.mble-bee when his sting is gone. I've heard with my own eyes my grandmother tell that story about her grandmother."

"Heard her with your eyes?"

"Of course not! With my ears, ears. Where are yours, for pity's sake?

There is an old garrison-house on the other side of the river, and I will show it to you some time, or I will show you what is left. They have built over the garrison-house and back of it, making a farm-house of it, but there is something still to be seen."

"What a blessed old aunty!" thought Charlie. And the wind, what grand music it made! The chimney seemed to be a big ba.s.s-viol that this north-easter played on.

At noon Aunt Stanshy said, "What will you have for dinner?"

"May I order it, the way I did at a saloon in Boston last summer? May I write what I want on paper, and put it on the table?"

"Yes, if orderin' will make it taste better, and it seems to affect some folks' vittles that way."

So Charlie and Aunt Stanshy "played saloon." He wrote his order on a slip of paper, and left it on the table for her inspection while he went up stairs. Directing her spectacles toward it, she read, with some amazement, this request:

"Please bring me for dinner, a pickle Aunt Stanshy, would be what you know nice to toast."

"Toasted pickle!" exclaimed Aunt Stanshy, in alarm.

Charlie had now returned to the sitting-room.

"You don't mean, Charles Pitt, a toasted pickle!"

"Why, no; ha! ha! There are two things on that paper. I said, 'Please bring me for dinner, Aunt Stanshy, what you know to toast.' That is on one side, and on the other, 'A pickle would be nice,' and I see now that you could read the words straight across, and it would mean what you say; ha!

ha! I don't expect a pickle, of course, for I am sick, you know."

"O!"

She did not laugh. She was rather mortified to think she had not read the order aright. The n.o.blest natures have their infirmities. Afterward, being ashamed of herself because she did not take pleasantly this unintended joke, she manifested her penitence by getting up an extra dinner for Charlie. There was more toast, and even of a finer quality. There was another orange, and there was some jelly that Aunt Stanshy took the pains to buy at Miss Persnips's store. This was a sweet but thin-voiced little woman, who sold a variety of things in a store on the corner of the lane and Water Street.

"It is nice to be sick, Aunt Stanshy."

"Do you think so?"