Heart of Gold | Page 8

Peace seemed well on the road to recovery, the secret fear which had haunted the household ever since the night of the accident took shape in words, and for the first time the invalid learned what a fate had been prophesied for her.
"Without crutches?" she half whispered.
"Yes."
Peace lay silent for a long moment while the awfulness of those words burned themselves into her brain. Then with a shudder she said aloud, "That's a mighty big thankful, ain't it?--To think I don't have to limp along with crutches! But, oh dear, two months in bed is such a long time to wait! Whatever will I do with myself? My feet are just itching to wiggle. I've been here two weeks now, and it seems two years. Two months means eight whole weeks!"
The voice rose to a tragic wail, and Grandma Campbell, hearing the commotion, hurried across the hall to discover the cause. She glanced reprovingly at the two culprits when the tale of woe had been poured into her ears with fresh laments from the small victims; but instead of scolding, as remorseful Cherry and Allee expected her to do, she smiled sympathetically, even cheerfully at the tragic face on the pillow, and asked, "Supposing you were a little tenement-house girl, cooped up in a tiny, stifling kitchen, with the steamy smell of hot soapsuds always in the air, and you had to lie all day, week in and week out, with not a book nor a toy to help while away the long hours. With not even a glimpse of the world outside to make you forget for a time the cruelly aching back--"
"O, Grandma, not really?" interrupted Peace, for something in the sound of the gentle voice told her that this was no imaginary picture which was being drawn. "Is there such a little girl?"
The white head nodded soberly.
"Isn't there even any sunshine there?" The brown eyes glanced wistfully out of the window, beside which the swan bed had been drawn, and gloated in the beautiful April sunlight which was already coaxing the grass into its brilliant green dress.
"Not a gleam," answered the woman sadly. "The buildings are jammed so closely together, and the windows are so small that not a ray of sunlight can penetrate a quarter part of the musty, dingy little rooms."
"Is that here--in Martindale?" inquired Cherry in shocked tones.
"Yes, on the North Side."
"What is the little girl's name?" asked Allee, awed into whispers by this sad recital.
"Sadie Wenzell."
"How old is she?" was the next question.
"Just the age of Peace."
"O, a little girl!" exclaimed Cherry. "Will she ever get well again?"
The sweet-faced woman hesitated an instant. How could she tell the eager listeners that long neglect had made poor Sadie's case well-nigh hopeless? Then she answered slowly, "We are giving her every possible chance now, dearies. The Aid Society found her by accident, and got her into the Children's Ward of the City Hospital. She cried with happiness because the bed was so soft and white and clean; and when the nurse carries up her breakfast or dinner, it is hard to persuade the little thing to eat,--she is so charmed with the dainty appearance of the tray."
"Oh-h!" whispered the three voices in awed chorus.
"Didn't she have anything to eat in her own house?" ventured Allee.
"Nothing but dry bread and greasy soup all the five years she has laid there--"
"Five years!" repeated Peace in horrified accents. "Without any sunshine and green grass and flowers! O, I sh'd think she'd have died before this! Didn't she ever go to school and play with other children?"
"Before she fell from the fire-escape--"
"Was she hurt in a fire?" interrupted Cherry with interest.
"No, there was no fire, but the fire-escape was her only playground, for her mother would not let her run the streets with the other ragamuffins of the tenements; and one day she fell and crushed her hip. But before that, she had attended a free kindergarten around the corner and learned her alphabet. Her mother has a little education, and she has managed to find time to teach Sadie how to read, but that is all the child knows of school."
"O," sighed Peace, with a sudden yearning for the rambling old school-house, the high-ceilinged rooms, her low seat by the window, and even stern Miss Phelps, "what a lot she has missed! Here I'm feeling bad 'cause school will be out 'fore I am up again, if I have to stay in bed two months longer, and I'll be way behind my classes. But Sadie has never had a chance to go to school at all."
"Yes, dearie, you see how much you have to be thankful for, even if it is two months before you can get out of doors again by yourself. Until now, Sadie never knew