Comfort Pease and her Gold Ring | Page 9

coming," Comfort gasped in reply. She turned the pocket back and went downstairs.
It was odd that, although Comfort looked so disturbed, neither her mother nor grandmother asked her what was the matter. They looked at her, then exchanged a meaning look with each other. And all her mother said was to bid her go and sit down by the fire and toast her feet. She also mixed a bowl of hot ginger-tea plentifully sweetened with molasses, and bade her drink that, so she could not catch cold; and yet there was something strange in her manner all the time. She made no remark, either, when she opened Comfort's dinner-pail and saw how little had been eaten. She merely showed it silently to Grandmother Atkins behind Comfort's back, and they nodded to each other with solemn meaning.
However, Mrs. Pease made the cream-toast that Comfort loved for supper, and obliged her to eat a whole plate of it.
"I can't have her get sick," she said to Grandmother Atkins after Comfort had gone to bed that night.
"She ain't got enough constitution, poor child," assented Grandmother Atkins.
Mrs. Pease opened the door and listened. "I believe she's crying now," said she. "I guess I'll go up there."
"I would if I was you," said Grandmother Atkins.
Comfort's sobs sounded louder and louder all the way, as her mother went upstairs.
"What's the matter, child?" she asked when she opened the door; and there was still something strange in her tone. While there was concern there was certainly no surprise.
"My tooth aches dreadfully," sobbed Comfort.
"You had better have some cotton-wool and paregoric on it, then," said her mother. Then she went downstairs for cotton-wool and paregoric, and she ministered to Comfort's aching tooth; but no cotton-wool or paregoric was there for Comfort's aching heart.
She sobbed so bitterly that her mother looked alarmed. "Comfort, look here; is there anything else the matter?" she asked, suddenly; and she put her hand on Comfort's shoulder.
"My tooth aches dreadfully--oh!" Comfort wailed.
"If your tooth aches so bad as all that, you'd better go to Dr. Hutchins in the morning and have it out," said her mother. "Now you'd better lie still and try to go to sleep, or you'll be sick."
Comfort's sobs followed her mother all the way downstairs. "Don't you cry so another minute, or you'll get so nervous you'll be sick," Mrs. Pease called back; but she sat down and cried awhile herself after she returned to the sitting-room.
Poor Comfort stifled her sobs under the patchwork quilt, but she could not stop crying for a long time, and she slept very little that night. When she did she dreamed that she had found the ring, but had to wear it around her aching tooth for a punishment, and the tooth was growing larger and larger, and the ring painfully tighter and tighter.
She looked so wan and ill the next morning that her mother told her she need not go to school. But Comfort begged hard to go, and said she did not feel sick; her tooth was better.
"Well, mind you get Miss Hanks to excuse you, and come home, if your tooth aches again," said her mother.
"Yes, ma'am," replied Comfort.
When the door shut behind Comfort her Grandmother Atkins looked at her mother. "Em'ly," said she, "I don't believe you can carry it out; she'll be sick."
"I'm dreadfully afraid she will," returned Comfort's mother.
"You'll have to tell her."
Mrs. Pease turned on Grandmother Atkins, and New England motherhood was strong in her face. "Mother," said she, "I don't want Comfort to be sick, and she sha'n't be if I can help it; but I've got a duty to her that's beyond looking out for her health. She's got a lesson to learn that's more important than any she's got in school, and I'm afraid she won't learn it at all unless she learns it by the hardest; and it won't do for me to help her."
"Well, I suppose you're right, Em'ly," said Grandmother Atkins; "but I declare I'm dreadfully sorry for the child."
"You ain't any sorrier than I am," said Comfort's mother. And she wiped her eyes now and then as she cleared away the breakfast dishes.
As for Comfort, she went on her way to school, looking as industriously and anxiously at the ground as if she were a little robin seeking for her daily food. Under the snowy blackberry-vines peered Comfort, under frozen twigs, and in the blue hollows of the snow, seeking, as it were, in the little secret places of nature for her own little secret of childish vanity and disobedience. It made no difference to her that it was not reasonable to look on that part of the road, since she could not have lost the ring there. She had a desperate hope, which was not affected by reason at