The Wide, Wide World

"Well," said she, "there you are! Why, you look smart enough. I've come to see you."

"Have you?" said Ellen uneasily.

"Miss Fortune's gone out, and she told me to come and take care of you; so I'm going to spend the afternoon."

"Are you?" said Ellen again.

"Yes – ain't you glad? I knew you must be lonely, so I thought I'd come."

There was a mischievous twinkle in Nancy's eyes. Ellen for once in her life wished for her aunt's presence.

"What are you doing?"

"Nothing," said Ellen.

"Nothing indeed? It's a fine thing to lie there and do nothing. You won't get well in a hurry, I guess, will you? You look as well as I do this minute. Oh, I always knew you was a sham."

"You are very much mistaken," said Ellen indignantly; "I have been very sick, and I am not at all well yet."

"Fiddle-dee-dee! it's very nice to think so; I guess you're lazy. How soft and good those pillows do look, to be sure. Come, Ellen, try getting up a little. I believe you hurt yourself with sleeping. It'll do you good to be out of bed awhile; come, get up."

She pulled Ellen's arm as she spoke.

"Stop, Nancy, let me alone!" cried Ellen, struggling with all her force; "I mustn't – I can't! I mustn't get up; what do you mean? I'm not able to sit up at all; let me go!"

She succeeded in freeing herself from Nancy's grasp.

"Well, you're an obstinate piece," said the other; "have your own way. But mind, I'm left in charge of you; is it time for you to take your physic?"

"I am not taking any," said Ellen.

"What are you taking?"

"Nothing but gruel and little things."

"'Gruel and little things;' little things means something good, I s'pose. Well, is it time for you to take some gruel or one of the little things?"

"No, I don't want any."

"Oh, that's nothing; people never know what's good for them; I'm your nurse now, and I'm going to give it to you when I think you want it. Let me feel your pulse – yes, your pulse says gruel is wanting. I shall put some down to warm right away."

"I shan't take it," said Ellen.

"That's a likely story! You'd better not say so. I rather s'pose you will if I give it to you. Look here, Ellen, you'd better mind how you behave; you're going to do just what I tell you. I know how to manage you; if you make any fuss I shall just tickle you finely," said Nancy, as she prepared a bed of coals, and set the cup of gruel on it to get hot; "I'll do it in no time at all, my young lady, so you'd better mind."

Poor Ellen involuntarily curled up her feet under the bedclothes so as to get them as far as possible out of harm's way She judged the best thing was to keep quiet if she could, so she said nothing. Nancy was in great glee; with something of the same spirit of mischief that a cat shows when she has a captured mouse at the end of her paws. While the gruel was heating she spun round the room in quest of amusement; and her sudden jerks and flings from one place and thing to another had so much of lawlessness that Ellen was in perpetual terror as to what she might take it into her head to do next.

"Where does that door lead to?"

"I believe that one leads to the garret," said Ellen.

"You believe so? why don't you say it does, at once?"

"I haven't been up to see."

"You haven't! you expect me to believe that, I s'pose? I am not quite such a gull as you take me for. What's up there?"

"I don't know, of course."

"Of course! I declare I don't know what you are up to exactly; but if you won't tell me I'll find out for myself pretty quick, that's one thing."

She flung open the door and ran up; and Ellen heard her feet trampling overhead from one end of the house to the other; and sounds too of pushing and pulling things over the floor; it was plain Nancy was rummaging.

"Well," said Ellen, as she turned uneasily upon her bed, "it's no affair of mine; I can't help it, whatever she does. But oh, won't Aunt Fortune be angry!"

Nancy presently came down with her frock gathered up into a bag before her.

"What do you think I have got here?" said she. "I s'pose you didn't know there was a basket of fine hickory nuts up there in the corner? Was it you or Miss Fortune that hid them away so nicely? I s'pose she thought nobody would ever think of looking behind the great blue chest and under the feather bed, but it takes me! Miss Fortune was afraid of your stealing 'em I guess, Ellen?"

"She needn't have been," said Ellen indignantly.

"No, I suppose you wouldn't take 'em if you saw 'em; you wouldn't eat 'em if they were cracked for you, would you?"

She flung some on Ellen's bed as she spoke. Nancy had seated herself on the floor, and using for a hammer a piece of old iron she had brought down with her from the garret, she was cracking the nuts on the clean white hearth.

"Indeed I wouldn't!" said Ellen, throwing them back; "and you oughtn't to crack them there, Nancy; you'll make a dreadful muss."

"What do you think I care?" said the other scornfully. She leisurely cracked and eat as many as she pleased of the nuts, bestowing the rest in the bosom of her frock. Ellen watched fearfully for her next move. If she should open the little door and get among her books and boxes!

Nancy's first care, however, was the cup of gruel. It was found too hot for any mortal lips to bear, so it was set on one side to cool. Then, taking up her rambling examination of the room, she went from window to window.

"What fine big windows! one might get in here easy enough. I declare, Ellen, some night I'll set the ladder up against here, and the first thing you'll see will be me coming in. You'll have me to sleep with you before you think."

"I'll fasten my windows," said Ellen.

"No, you won't. You'll do it a night or two, may be, but then you'll forget it. I shall find them open when I come. Oh, I'll come!"

"But I could call Aunt Fortune," said Ellen.

"No, you couldn't, 'cause if you spoke a word I'd tickle you to death; that's what I'd do. I know how to fix you off. And if you did call her I'd just whap out of the window and run off with my ladder, and then you'd get a fine combing for disturbing the house. What's in this trunk?"

"Only my clothes and things," said Ellen.

"Oh goody! that's fine; now I'll have a look at 'em. That's just what I wanted, only I didn't know it. Where's the key? Oh, here it is sticking in – that's good!"

"Oh, please don't!" said Ellen, raising herself on her elbows, "they're all in nice order, and you'll get them all in confusion. Oh, do let them alone!"

"You'd best be quiet or I'll come and see you," said Nancy; "I'm just going to look at everything in it, and if I find any thing out of sorts, you'll get it. What's this? ruffles, I declare! ain't you fine! I'll see how they look on me. What a plague! you haven't a glass in the room. Never mind – I am used to dressing without a glass."