What Katy Did

“Or so I sometimes think; and then,
At other times, they meet and kiss,
And look so strangely like, that I
Am puzzled to tell how it is,
Or whence the change which makes it vain
To guess if it be—Love or Pain.

“They tell me if I study well,
And learn my lessons, I shall be
Moved upward to that higher class
Where dear Love teaches constantly;
And I work hard, in hopes to gain
Reward, and get away from Pain.

“Yet Pain is sometimes kind, and helps
Me on when I am very dull;
I thank him often in my heart;
But Love is far more beautiful;
Under her tender, gentle reign
I must learn faster than of Pain.

“So I will do my very best,
Nor chide the clock, nor call it slow;
That when the Teacher calls me up
To see if I am fit to go,
I may to Love’s high class attain,
And bid a sweet good-by to Pain.”

CHAPTER XI A NEW LESSON TO LEARN

It was a long time before the children ceased to talk and laugh over that jolly evening. Dorry declared he wished there could be a Valentine’s-Day every week.

“Don’t you think St. Valentine would be tired of writing verses?” asked Katy. But she, too, had enjoyed the frolic, and the bright recollection helped her along through the rest of the long, cold winter.

Spring opened late that year, but the Summer, when it came, was a warm one. Katy felt the heat very much. She could not change her seat and follow the breeze about from window to window as other people could. The long burning days left her weak and parched. She hung her head, and seemed to wilt like the flowers in the garden-beds. Indeed she was worse off than they, for every evening Alexander gave them a watering with the hose, while nobody was able to bring a watering-pot and pour out what she needed—a shower of cold, fresh air.

It wasn’t easy to be good-humored under these circumstances, and one could hardly have blamed Katy if she had sometimes forgotten her resolutions and been cross and fretful. But she didn’t—not very often. Now and then bad days came, when she was discouraged and forlorn. But Katy’s long year of schooling had taught her self- control, and, as a general thing, her discomforts were borne patiently. She could not help growing pale and thin however, and Papa saw with concern that, as the summer went on, she became too languid to read, or study, or sew, and just sat hour after hour, with folded hands, gazing wistfully out of the window.

He tried the experiment of taking her to drive. But the motion of the carriage, and the being lifted in and out, brought on so much pain, that Katy begged that he would not ask her to go again. So there was nothing to be done but wait for cooler weather. The summer dragged on, and all who loved Katy rejoiced when it was over.

When September came, with cool mornings and nights, and fresh breezes, smelling of pine woods, and hill- tops, all things seemed to revive, and Katy with them. She began to crochet and to read. After a while she collected her books again, and tried to study as Cousin Helen had advised. But so many idle weeks made it seem harder work than ever. One day she asked Papa to let her take French lessons.

“You see I’m forgetting all I knew,” she said, “and Clover is going to begin this term, and I don’t like that she should get so far ahead of me. Don’t you think Mr. Berger would be willing to come here, Papa? He does go to houses sometimes.”

“I think he would if we asked him,” said Dr. Carr, pleased to see Katy waking up with something like life again.

So the arrangement was made. Mr. Berger came twice every week, and sat beside the big chair, correcting Katy’s exercises and practising her in the verbs and pronunciation. He was a lively little old Frenchman, and knew how to make lesson-time pleasant.

“You take more pain than you used, Mademoiselle,” he said one day; “if you go on so, you shall be my best scholar. And if to hurt the back make you study, it would be well that some other of my young ladies shall do the same.”

Katy laughed. But in spite of Mr. Berger and his lessons, and in spite of her endeavors to keep cheerful and busy, this second winter was harder than the first. It is often so with sick people. There is a sort of excitement in being ill which helps along just at the beginning. But as months go on, and everything grows an old story, and one day follows another day, all just alike and all tiresome, courage is apt to flag and spirits to grow dull. Spring seemed a long, long way off whenever Katy thought about it.

“I wish something would happen,” she often said to herself. And something was about to happen. But she little guessed what it was going to be.

“Katy!” said Clover, coming in one day in November, “do you know where the camphor is? Aunt Izzie has got such a headache.”

“No,” replied Katy, “I don’t. Or—wait—Clover, it seems to me that Debby came for it the other day. Perhaps if you look in her room you’ll find it.”

“How very queer!” she soliloquized, when Clover was gone; “I never knew Aunt Izzie to have a headache before.”

“How is Aunt Izzie?” she asked, when Papa came in at noon.

“Well, I don’t know. She has some fever and a bad pain in her head. I have told her that she had better lie still, and not try to get up this evening. Old Mary will come in to undress you, Katy. You won’t mind, will you, dear?”

“N-o!” said Katy, reluctantly. But she did mind. Aunt Izzie had grown used to her and her ways. Nobody else suited her so well.

“It seems so strange to have to explain just how every little thing is to be done,” she remarked to Clover, rather petulantly.

It seemed stranger yet, when the next day, and the next, and the next after that passed, and still no Aunt Izzie came near her. Blessings brighten as they take their flight. Katy began to appreciate for the first time how much she had learned to rely on her aunt. She missed her dreadfully.

“When is Aunt Izzie going to get well?” she asked her father; “I want her so much.”

“We all want her,” said Dr. Carr, who looked disturbed and anxious.