The English Orphans | Page 8

and not feeling at all frightened, stepped briskly forward, saying, "Well, mother, what's the matter now? Got a cramp in your foot, or what?"
"Oh, William," said she, "I've lived through a sight but my time has come at last. Such a pain in my head and stomach. I do believe I've got the scarlet fever, and you must run for the doctor quick."
"Scarlet fever!" repeated Billy, "why, you've had it once, and you can't have it again, can you?"
"Oh, I don't know,--I never was like anybody else, and can have any thing a dozen times. Now be spry and fetch the doctor but before you go, hand me my snuff-box and put the canister top heapin' full of tea into the tea-pot."
Billy obeyed, and then, knowing that the green tea would remove his mother's ailment quite as soon as the physician, he hurried away towards Mrs. Howard's. The sun was just rising, and its red rays looked in at the window, through which the moonlight had shone the night before. Beneath the window a single rose-tree was blooming, and on it a robin was pouring out its morning song. Within the cottage there was no sound or token of life, and thinking its inmates were asleep, Billy paused several minutes upon the threshold, fearing that he should disturb their slumbers. At last with a vague presentiment that all was not right, he raised the latch and entered, but instantly started back in astonishment at the scene before him. On the little trundlebed lay Frank, cold and dead, and near him in the same long dreamless sleep was his mother, while between them, with one arm thrown lovingly across her brother's neck, and her cheek pressed against his, lay Mary--her eyelids moist with the tears which, though sleeping she still shed. On the other side of Frank and nestled so closely to him that her warm breath lifted the brown curls from his brow, was Ella. But there were no tear stains on her face, for she did not yet know how bereaved she was.
For a moment Billy stood irresolute, and then as Mary moved uneasily in her slumbers, he advanced a step or two towards her. The noise aroused her, and instantly remembering and comprehending the whole, she threw herself with a bitter cry into Billy's extended arms, as if he alone were all the protector she now had in the wide, wide world. Ere long Ella too awoke, and the noisy outburst which followed the knowledge of her loss, made Mary still the agony of her own heart in order to soothe the more violent grief of her excitable sister.
There was a stir in the cradle, and with a faint cry the baby Alice awoke and stretched her hands towards Mary who, with all a mother's care took the child upon her lap and fed her from the milk which was still standing in the broken pitcher. With a baby's playfulness Alice dipped her small fingers into the milk, and shaking them in her sister's face, laughed aloud as the white drops fell upon her hair. This was too much for poor Mary, and folding the child closer to her bosom she sobbed passionately.
"Oh, Allie, dear little Allie, what will you do? What shall we all do? Mother's dead, mother's dead!"
Ella was not accustomed to see her sister thus moved, and her tears now flowed faster while she entreated Mary to stop. "Don't do so, Mary," she said. "Don't do so. You make me cry harder. Tell her to stop, Billy. Tell her to stop."
But Billy's tears were flowing too, and he could only answer the little girl by affectionately smoothing her tangled curls, which for once in her life she had forgotten to arrange At length rising up, he said to Mary, "Something must be done. The villagers must know of it, and I shall have to leave you alone while I tell them."
In half an hour from that time the cottage was nearly filled with people, some of whom came out of idle curiosity, and after seeing all that was to be seen, started for home, telling the first woman who put her head out the chamber window for particulars, that "'twas a dreadful thing, and such a pity, too, that Ella should have to go to the poor-house, with her pretty face and handsome curls."
But there were others who went there for the sake of comforting the orphans and attending to the dead, and by noon the bodies were decently arranged for burial. Mrs. Johnson's Irish girl Margaret was cleaning the room, and in the bedroom adjoining, Mrs. Johnson herself, with two or three other ladies, were busily at work upon some plain, neat shrouds, and as they worked they talked of the orphan children who