Aunt Hannah and Seth

Seth did not join Gladys and Snip in their afternoon romp, but continued at his self-imposed tasks until night had come, doing quite as much work with his mind as his hands. Twenty times over he resolved to tell the little woman exactly why he was forced to run away from New York, and as often decided he could not confess himself such a criminal as it seemed certain, because of the advertisement, he really was.

"I couldn't stand it to have her look at me after she knew everything," he repeated again and again.

There was no idea in his mind as to how the matter might end, save when now and then he had the faintest of faint hopes that perhaps she might forget, or learn the truth from some one other than himself.

During three days he struggled between what he knew to be duty and his own inclination, and in all that time the little woman never showed by word or look that there was any disagreeable secret between them.

Seth tried to ease his conscience by working most industriously during every moment of daylight, and then came the time when it was absolutely impossible to find anything more for his hands to do. He had swept the barn floor until it was as clean as a broom could make it; the wood in the shed had been piled methodically; a goodly supply of kindlings were prepared, and not so much as a pebble was to be seen on the velvety lawn.

Gladys had tried in vain to entice him away from what she declared was useless labor, and Snip did all within the power of a dog to coax his master into joining him in the jolly strolls among the trees or across the green fields, and yet Seth remained nearabout the little house in a feverish search for something with which to employ his hands.

"It's no use, Snippey dear," he said on the fourth night of his stay at the farm, after the family had retired, "I can't stay an' not tell Aunt Hannah, an' it's certain we won't be allowed to stop more'n a minute after she knows the truth. If I could talk to her in the dark, when I couldn't see her face, it wouldn't seem quite so bad; but we go to bed so early there's no chance for that. We must have it out mighty soon, for I can't hang 'round here many hours longer without tellin' all about ourselves."

He was not ready for bed, although an hour had passed since he bade Aunt Hannah and Gladys good-night.

The moon had gilded the rail fence, the shed, and the barn until they were transformed into fairy handiwork; the road gleamed like gold with an enamel of black marking the position of trees and bushes, and Seth had gazed upon the wondrous picture without really being aware of time's flight.

Having repeated to Snip that which was in his mind, the boy was on the point of making himself ready for a visit from the dream elves when he heard, apparently from the room below, what sounded like a fall, a smothered exclamation, and the splintering of glass.

Only for a single instant did he stand motionless, and then, realizing that some accident must have happened, he ran downstairs, Snip following close behind, barking shrilly.

Once in the kitchen an exclamation of terror burst from his lips.

The room was illumined by a line of fire, seemingly extending entirely across the floor, which was fringed by a dense smoke that rose nearly to the ceiling, and, beside the table, where she had evidently fallen, lay Aunt Hannah, struggling to smother with bare hands the yellow, dancing flames that had fastened upon her clothing.

It needed not the fragments of glass and brass to tell Seth that the little woman had accidentally fallen, breaking the lamp she carried, and that the fire was fed by oil.

Like a flash there came into his mind the memory of that night when Dud Wilson overturned a lamp on the floor of his news-stand, and he had heard it said then that the property might have been saved if the boys had smothered the flames with their coats, or any fabric of woollen, instead of trying to drown it out with water.

He pulled off his coat in a twinkling, threw it over the prostrate woman, and added to the covering rag rugs from the floor, pressing them down firmly as he said, in a trembling voice, much as though speaking to a child:

"Don't get scared! We can't put the fire out with water; but I'll soon smother it."

"You needn't bother about me, my child; but attend to the house! It would be dreadful if we should lose the dear old home!"

"I'll get the best of this business in a jiffy; but it won't do to give you a chance of bein' burned."

"There is no fire here now." And Aunt Hannah threw back the rugs, despite Seth's hold upon them, to show that the flames were really quenched. "For mercy's sake, save the house! It's the only home I ever knew, an' my heart would be wellnigh broken if I lost it!"

Before she had ceased speaking Seth was flinging rug after rug on the burning oil, for Aunt Hannah, like many another woman living in the country, had an ample supply of such floor coverings.

Not until he had entirely covered that line of flame, and had danced to and fro over the rugs to stamp out the last spark of fire, did he venture to open the outside door, and it was high time, for the pungent smoke filled the kitchen until it was exceedingly difficult to breathe.

The little woman remained upon the floor where Seth had first found her, and it was only after the night breeze was blowing through the room, carrying off the stifling vapor, that the boy had time to wonder why she made no effort to rise.

"Are you hurt?" he cried anxiously, running to her side.

"Never mind me until the fire is out."

"There is no more fire, an' I'm bound to mind you! Are you hurt?"

"It doesn't seem possible, my dear, an' yet I can't use either ankle or wrist. Of course the bones are not broken; but old people like me don't fall harmlessly as do children."

Seth was more alarmed now than when he saw the flames of the burning oil threatening the destruction of the building, and he dumbly wondered why Gladys did not make her appearance.

The first excitement was over, and now he had time in which to be frightened.

"What can I do? Oh, what can I do?" he cried, running to and fro, and then, hardly aware of his movements, he shouted loudly for Gladys.

"Don't waken her!" Aunt Hannah cried warningly. "If you can't help me there is nothing she can do."

"Ain't she in the house?" Seth asked nervously.

He feared Aunt Hannah might die, and even though she was in no real danger, to stand idly by not knowing how to aid her was terrible.

He failed to observe that Snip was no longer in the room; but just at that moment his shrill barking was heard in an adjoining apartment, and Seth knew the dog had gone to find his little playmate.

"You mustn't get frightened after the danger is all over, my dear," Aunt Hannah said soothingly. "But for you the house would have been destroyed, and now we have nothing to fear."

"But you can't get up!" Seth wailed.

"That wouldn't be a great misfortune compared with losing our home, even if I never got up again," the little woman said quietly. "But I'm not going to lie here. Surely you can help me on to the couch."

"Tell me how to do it," Seth cried eagerly, and at that moment Gladys appeared in the doorway.

"Lean over so that I may put my arms around your neck," Aunt Hannah said, giving no heed to the girl's cry of alarm.

"She fell an' hurt herself," Seth said hurriedly to Gladys, as he obeyed the little woman's injunction. And then, as the latter put her uninjured arm over his neck, he tried to aid the movement by clasping her waist.

"If you can help me just a little bit we'll soon have her on the couch," he cried to Gladys, who by this time was standing at his side.

Aunt Hannah was a tiny woman, and the children, small though they were, did not find it an exceedingly difficult task to raise her bodily from the floor.

Then Gladys lighted a lamp, and it was seen that, in addition to the injuries received by the fall, Aunt Hannah had been grievously burned.

"Yes, I'm in some pain," she said in reply to Seth's anxious questioning; "but now that the house has been saved I have no right to complain. Get some flour, Gladys, and while you are putting it on the worst of the burns, perhaps Seth will run over to Mrs. Dean an' ask if she can come here a few minutes."

"Where does Mis' Dean live?" the lad asked hurriedly, starting toward the door; and he was already outside when Gladys replied:

"It's the first house past the grove where Snip and I went this afternoon!"

Seth gave no heed to his lameness as he ran at full speed down the road; the thought that now was the time when he might in some slight degree repay Aunt Hannah for having given shelter to him and Snip, lending speed to his feet.

The Dean family had not yet retired when he arrived at the farmhouse, and, stopping only sufficiently long to tell in fewest possible words of what had happened, Seth ran back to help Gladys care for the invalid, for he was feverishly eager to have some part in the nursing.

Aunt Hannah was on the couch with her wounds partially bandaged when the boy returned, and although her suffering must have been severe, that placid face was as serene as when he bade her good-night.

"Mis' Dean is comin' right away. What can I do?"