A Modern Cinderella; Or, The Little Old Shoe, and Other StoriesAlcott, Louisa May
General
A Modern Cinderella; Or, The Little Old Shoe, and Other Stories
Alcott, Louisa May
Fiction; Short stories
That promise sent Nelly happily away to bed, only stopping to pop her
head out of the window to see if it was likely to be a fair day
to-morrow, and to tell Tony about the new plan as he passed below.
"Where shall you go to look for your first load of sick folks, miss?"
he asked.
"All round the garden first, then through the grove, and home across
the brook. Do you think I can find any patients so?" said Nelly.
"I know you will. Good night, miss," and Tony walked away with a merry
look on his face, that Nelly would not have understood if she had seen
it.
Up rose the sun bright and early, and up rose Nurse Nelly almost as
early and as bright. Breakfast was taken in a great hurry, and before
the dew was off the grass this branch of the S. C. was all astir.
Papa, mamma, big brother and baby sister, men and maids, all looked out
to see the funny little ambulance depart, and nowhere in all the summer
fields was there a happier child than Nelly, as she went smiling down
the garden path, where tall flowers kissed her as she passed and every
blithe bird seemed singing a "Good speed!"
"How I wonder what I shall find first," she thought, looking sharply on
all sides as she went. Crickets chirped, grasshoppers leaped, ants
worked busily at their subterranean houses, spiders spun shining webs
from twig to twig, bees were coming for their bags of gold, and
butterflies had just begun their holiday. A large white one alighted
on the top of the ambulance, walked over the inscription as if spelling
it letter by letter, then floated away from flower to flower, like one
carrying the good news far and wide.
"Now every one will know about the hospital and be glad to see me
coming," thought Nelly. And indeed it seemed so, for just then a
black-bird, sitting on a garden wall, burst out with a song full of
musical joy, Nelly's kitten came running after to stare at the wagon
and rub her soft side against it, a bright-eyed toad looked out from
his cool bower among the lily-leaves, and at that minute Nelly found
her first patient. In one of the dewy cobwebs hanging from a shrub
near by sat a fat black and yellow spider, watching a fly whose
delicate wings were just caught in the net. The poor fly buzzed
pitifully, and struggled so hard that the whole web shook: but the more
he struggled, the more he entangled himself, and the fierce spider was
preparing to descend that it might weave a shroud about its prey, when
a little finger broke the threads and lifted the fly safely into the
palm of a hand, where he lay faintly humming his thanks.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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