Even when I turn my back on it I can see it there just as plain.
Jane said she cried herself sick over it.
I love a book that makes me cry.
But I think I’ll carry that book into the sitting room and lock it in the jam closet and give you the key.
And you must not give it to me, Matthew, until my lessons are done, not even if I implore you on my bended knees.
It’s all very well to say resist temptation, but it’s ever so much easier to resist it if you can’t get the key.
And then shall I run down the cellar and get some russets, Matthew?
Wouldn’t you like some russets?”
“Well now, I dunno but what I would,” said Matthew, who never ate russets but knew Anne’s weakness for them.
Just as Anne emerged triumphantly from the cellar with her plateful of russets came the sound of flying footsteps on the icy board walk outside and the next moment the kitchen door was flung open and in rushed Diana Barry, white faced and breathless, with a shawl wrapped hastily around her head.
Anne promptly let go of her candle and plate in her surprise, and plate, candle, and apples crashed together down the cellar ladder and were found at the bottom embedded in melted grease, the next day, by Marilla, who gathered them up and thanked mercy the house hadn’t been set on fire.
“Whatever is the matter, Diana?” cried Anne.
“Has your mother relented at last?”
“Oh, Anne, do come quick,” implored Diana nervously.
“Minnie May is awful sick—she’s got croup.
Young Mary Joe says—and Father and Mother are away to town and there’s nobody to go for the doctor.
Minnie May is awful bad and Young Mary Joe doesn’t know what to do—and oh, Anne, I’m so scared!”
Matthew, without a word, reached out for cap and coat, slipped past Diana and away into the darkness of the yard.
“He’s gone to harness the sorrel mare to go to Carmody for the doctor,” said Anne, who was hurrying on hood and jacket.
“I know it as well as if he’d said so.
Matthew and I are such kindred spirits I can read his thoughts without words at all.”
“I don’t believe he’ll find the doctor at Carmody,” sobbed Diana.
“I know that Dr. Blair went to town and I guess Dr. Spencer would go too.
Young Mary Joe never saw anybody with croup and Mrs. Lynde is away.
Oh, Anne!”
“Don’t cry, Di,” said Anne cheerily. “I know exactly what to do for croup.
You forget that Mrs. Hammond had twins three times.
When you look after three pairs of twins you naturally get a lot of experience.
They all had croup regularly.
Just wait till I get the ipecac bottle—you mayn’t have any at your house.
Come on now.”
The two little girls hastened out hand in hand and hurried through Lover’s Lane and across the crusted field beyond, for the snow was too deep to go by the shorter wood way.
Anne, although sincerely sorry for Minnie May, was far from being insensible to the romance of the situation and to the sweetness of once more sharing that romance with a kindred spirit.
The night was clear and frosty, all ebony of shadow and silver of snowy slope; big stars were shining over the silent fields; here and there the dark pointed firs stood up with snow powdering their branches and the wind whistling through them.
Anne thought it was truly delightful to go skimming through all this mystery and loveliness with your bosom friend who had been so long estranged.
Minnie May, aged three, was really very sick.
She lay on the kitchen sofa feverish and restless, while her hoarse breathing could be heard all over the house.
Young Mary Joe, a buxom, broad-faced French girl from the creek, whom Mrs. Barry had engaged to stay with the children during her absence, was helpless and bewildered, quite incapable of thinking what to do, or doing it if she thought of it.
Anne went to work with skill and promptness.
“Minnie May has croup all right; she’s pretty bad, but I’ve seen them worse.
First we must have lots of hot water.
I declare, Diana, there isn’t more than a cupful in the kettle!
There, I’ve filled it up, and, Mary Joe, you may put some wood in the stove.
I don’t want to hurt your feelings but it seems to me you might have thought of this before if you’d any imagination.
Now, I’ll undress Minnie May and put her to bed and you try to find some soft flannel cloths, Diana.
I’m going to give her a dose of ipecac first of all.”
Minnie May did not take kindly to the ipecac but Anne had not brought up three pairs of twins for nothing.
Down that ipecac went, not only once, but many times during the long, anxious night when the two little girls worked patiently over the suffering Minnie May, and Young Mary Joe, honestly anxious to do all she could, kept up a roaring fire and heated more water than would have been needed for a hospital of croupy babies.
It was three o’clock when Matthew came with a doctor, for he had been obliged to go all the way to Spencervale for one.
But the pressing need for assistance was past.