Boy Scouts of America -- Juvenile fiction; Camps -- Juvenile fiction
“There he is now,” said Mrs. Cowell.
“No, it’s that Ford across the way,” said the girl patiently.
“I don’t see why people have Fords; look up the street, dear, and see if
he isn’t coming; it must be half an hour.”
“It’s only about ten minutes, mother dear; you don’t feel any pain now,
do you, Will?”
The boy moved his head from side to side, his mother watching him
anxiously.
“Are you sure?” she asked.
“I can’t go to camp now, I suppose,” the boy said.
The girl frowned significantly at their mother as if to beseech her not
to say the word which would mean disappointment to the boy.
“We’ll talk about that later, dear,” said Mrs. Cowell. “You don’t feel
any of that—like you said—that dizzy feeling now?”
“Maybe I could go later,” said the boy.
Again the girl availed herself of the momentary chance afforded by her
brother’s averted glance to give her mother a quick look of reproof, as
if she had not too high an opinion of her mother’s tact. Poor Mrs.
Cowell accepted the silent reprimand and warning and compromised with
her daughter by saying:
“Perhaps so, we’ll see.”
“I know what you mean when you say you’ll see,” said the boy wistfully.
“You must just lie still now and not talk,” his mother said, as she
soothed his forehead, the while trying to glimpse the street through one
of the curtained windows.
In the tenseness of silent, impatient waiting, the clock which stood on
the mantel sounded with the clearness of artillery; the noise of a
child’s toy express wagon could be heard rattling over the flagstones
outside where the voice of a small girl arose loud and clear in the
balmy air.
“What are they doing now?” Mrs. Cowell asked irritably.
“They’re coasting, mother.”
“I should think that little Wentworth girl wouldn’t feel much like
coasting after what she saw.”
But indeed the little Wentworth girl, having gaped wide-eyed at the
spectacle of Wilfred Cowell reeling and collapsing and being carried
into the house, had resumed her rather original enterprise of throwing a
rubber ball and coasting after it in the miniature express wagon.
“He might be—dying—for all she knows,” said Mrs. Cowell. “He might,” she
added, lowering her voice, “he might be——”
“Shh, mother,” pleaded the girl; “you know how children are.”
“I never knew a little girl to make so much noise,” said the distraught
lady. “Are you sure he said he’d come right away?”
“For the tenth time, _yes_, mother.”
Arden Cowell quietly opened the front door and looked searchingly up and
down the street. Half-way up the block was the little Wentworth girl
enthroned in anything but a demure posture upon her rattling chariot,
her legs astride the upheld shaft.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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