Cousin Lucy's Conversations

“Yes, if you could find it.”

“O, Miss Anne, I could find it very easily; I am going to keep it in my treasury.”

“Perhaps you might put it in once or twice, but after that you would leave it about anywhere. One day I should find it upon a chair, and the next day upon a table, and the next on the floor; – that is the way you leave your things about the house.”

“I used to, when I was a little girl,” said Lucy, “but I don’t now.”

“How long is it since you were a little girl?” asked Miss Anne.

“O, it was before you came here. I am older now than I was when you came here; I have had a birthday since then.”

“Don’t you grow old any, except when you have a birthday?” asked Miss Anne.

Lucy did not answer this question at first, as she did not know exactly how it was; and while she was thinking of it, Miss Anne said,

“It can’t be very long, Lucy, since you learned to put things in their places, for it is not more than ten minutes since I heard you throw down an umbrella upon the entry floor, and leave it there.”

“The umbrella? – O, that was because I heard Royal calling for his cap; and so I could not wait, you know; I had to leave it there.”

“But you have passed by it once since, and I presume you did not think of such a thing as taking it up.”

Lucy had no reply to make to this statement, and she remained silent.

“I have got a great many little things,” continued Miss Anne, “which I don’t want myself, and which I should be very glad to give away to some little girl, for playthings, if I only knew of some one who would take care of them. I don’t want to have them scattered about the house, and lost, and destroyed.”

“O, I will take care of them, Miss Anne,” said Lucy, very eagerly, “if you will only give them to me. I certainly will. I will put them in my treasury, and keep them very safe.”

“If I were a little girl, no bigger than you,” said Miss Anne, “I should have a great cabinet of playthings and curiosities, twice as big as your treasury.”

“How should you get them?” asked Lucy.

“O, I know of a way; – but it is a secret.”

“Tell me, do, Miss Anne,” said Lucy. – “You would buy them, I suppose, with your money.”

“No,” said Miss Anne, “that is not the way I meant.”

“What way did you mean, then?” said Lucy. “I wish you would tell me.”

“Why, I should take such excellent care of everything I had, that my mother would give me a great many of her little curiosities, and other things, to keep.”

“Would she, do you think?”

“Yes,” said Miss Anne, “I do not doubt it. Every lady has a great many beautiful things, put away, which she does not want to use herself, but she only wants to have them kept safely. Now, I should take such good care of all such things, that my mother would be very glad to have me keep them.”

“Did you do so, when you were a little girl?” said Lucy.

“No,” said Miss Anne; “I was just as careless and foolish as you are. When I was playing with anything, and was suddenly called away, I would throw it right down, wherever I happened to be, and leave it there. Once I had a little glass dog, and I left it on the floor, where I had been playing with it, and somebody came along, and stepped upon it, and broke it to pieces.”

“And would not your mother give you things then?” asked Lucy.

“No, nothing which was of much value. – And once my uncle sent me a beautiful little doll; but my mother would not let me keep it. She kept it herself, locked up in a drawer, only sometimes she would let me have it to play with.”

“Why would not she let you keep it?” said Lucy.

“O, if she had, I should soon have made it look like old Margaret.”

Here Royal said he had got his Indian pasted; and he put away the gum arabic bottle, and the sheet of paper, and then he and Lucy went away.

CONVERSATION VI

MIDNIGHT

One night, while Miss Anne was undressing Lucy, to put her to bed, she thought that her voice had a peculiar sound, somewhat different from usual. It was not hoarseness, exactly, and yet it was such a sort of sound as made Miss Anne think that Lucy had taken cold. She asked her if she had not taken cold, but Lucy said no.

Lucy slept in Miss Anne’s room, in a little trundle-bed. Late in the evening, just before Miss Anne herself went to bed, she looked at Lucy, to see if she was sleeping quietly; and she found that she was.

But in the night Miss Anne was awaked by hearing Lucy coughing with a peculiar hoarse and hollow sound, and breathing very hard. She got up, and went to her trundle-bed.

“Lucy,” said she, “what’s the matter?”

“Nothing,” said Lucy, “only I can’t breathe very well.”

Here Lucy began to cough again; and the cough sounded so hoarse and hollow, that Miss Anne began to be quite afraid that Lucy was really sick. She put on a loose robe, and carried her lamp out into the kitchen, and lighted it, – and then came back into her room again. She found that Lucy was no better, and so she went to call her mother.

She went with the lamp, and knocked at her door; and when she answered, Miss Anne told her that Lucy did not seem to be very well, – that she had a hoarse cough, and that she breathed hard.

“O, I’m afraid it is the croup,” she exclaimed; “let us get up immediately.”

“We will get right up, and come and see her,” said Lucy’s father.

So Miss Anne put the lamp down at their door, and went out into the kitchen to light another lamp for herself. She also opened the coals, and put a little wood upon the fire, and hung the tea-kettle upon the crane, and filled it up with water; for Miss Anne had observed that, in cases of sudden sickness, hot water was one of the things most sure to be wanted.

After a short time, Lucy’s father and mother came in. After they had been with her a few minutes, her mother said,

“Don’t you think it is the croup?”

“No, I hope not,” said her father; “I presume it is only quinsy; but I am not sure, and perhaps I had better go for a doctor.”

After some further consultation, they concluded that it was best to call a physician. Lucy’s mother recommended that they should call up the hired man, and send him; but her father thought that it would take some time for him to get up and get ready, and that he had better go himself.

When he had gone, they brought in some hot water, and bathed Lucy’s feet. She liked this very much; but her breathing seemed to grow rather worse than better.

“What is the croup?” said Lucy to her mother, while her feet were in the water.

“It is a kind of sickness that children have sometimes suddenly in the night; but I hope you are not going to have it.”

“No, mother,” said Lucy; “I think it is only the quinsy.”