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What Katy Did

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"Just like you and me!" whispered Katy, squeezing Cousin Helen's hand.

"Something like me; but not so much like you, because, you know, we hope
_you_ are going to get well one of these days. The girl didn't mind it
so much when they first told her, for she was so ill that she felt sure
she should die. But when she got better, and began to think of the long
life which lay before her, that was worse than ever the pain had been.
She was so wretched, that she didn't care what became of anything, or
how anything looked. She had no Aunt Izzie to look after things, so her
room soon got into a dreadful state. It was full of dust and confusion,
and dirty spoons and phials of physic. She kept the blinds shut, and let
her hair tangle every which way, and altogether was a dismal spectacle.

"This girl had a dear old father," went on Cousin Helen, "who used to
come every day and sit beside her bed. One morning he said to her:

"'My daughter, I'm afraid you've got to live in this room for a long
time. Now there's one thing I want you to do for my sake.'

"'What's that?' she asked, surprised to hear there was anything left
which she could _do_ for anybody.

"'I want you to turn out all these physic bottles, and make your room
pleasant and pretty for _me_ to come and sit in. You see, I shall spend
a good deal of my time here! Now I don't like dust and darkness. I like
to see flowers on the table, and sunshine in at the window. Will you do
this to please me?'

"'Yes,' said the girl, but she gave a sigh, and I am afraid she felt as
if it was going to be a dreadful trouble.

"'Then, another thing,' continued her father, 'I want _you_ to look
pretty. Can't nightgowns and wrappers be trimmed and made becoming just
as much as dresses? A sick woman who isn't neat is a disagreeable
object. Do, to please me, send for something pretty, and let me see you
looking nice again. I can't bear to have my Helen turn into a
slattern.'"

"Helen!" exclaimed Katy, with wide-open eyes, "was it _you_?"

"Yes," said her cousin, smiling. "It was I though I didn't mean to let
the name slip out so soon. So, after my father was gone away, I sent for
a looking-glass. Such a sight, Katy! My hair was a perfect mouse's nest,
and I had frowned so much that my forehead was all criss-crossed with
lines of pain, till it looked like an old woman's."

Katy stared at Cousin Helen's smooth brow and glossy hair. "I can't
believe it," she said; "your hair never could be rough."

"Yes it was--worse, a great deal, than yours looks now. But that peep in
the glass did me good. I began to think how selfishly I was behaving,
and to desire to do better. And after that, when the pain came on, I
used to lie and keep my forehead smooth with my fingers, and try not to
let my face show what I was enduring. So by and by the wrinkles wore
away, and though I am a good deal older now, they have never come back.

"It was a great deal of trouble at first to have to think and plan to
keep my room and myself looking nice. But after a while it grew to be a
habit, and then it became easy. And the pleasure it gave my dear father
repaid for all. He had been proud of his active, healthy girl, but I
think she was never such a comfort to him as his sick one, lying there
in her bed. My room was his favorite sitting-place, and he spent so
much time there, that now the room, and everything in it, makes me
think of him."

There were tears in Cousin Helen's eyes as she ceased speaking. But Katy
looked bright and eager. It seemed somehow to be a help, as well as a
great surprise, that ever there should have been a time when Cousin
Helen was less perfect than she was now.

"Do you really think I could do so too?" she asked.

"Do what? Comb your hair?" Cousin Helen was smiling now.

"Oh no! Be nice and sweet and patient, and a comfort to people. You know
what I mean."

"I am sure you can, if you try."

"But what would you do first?" asked Katy; who, now that her mind had
grasped a new idea, was eager to begin.

"Well--first I would open the blinds, and make the room look a little
less dismal. Are you taking all those medicines in the bottles now?"

"No--only that big one with the blue label."

"Then you might ask Aunt Izzy to take away the others. And I'd get
Clover to pick a bunch of fresh flowers every day for your table. By the
way, I don't see the little white vase."

"No--it got broken the very day after you went away; the day I fell out
of the swing," said Katy, sorrowfully.

"Never mind, pet, don't look so doleful. I know the tree those vases
grow upon, and you shall have another. Then, after the room is made
pleasant, I would have all my lesson-books fetched up, if I were you,
and I would study a couple of hours every morning."

"Oh!" cried Katy, making a wry face at the idea.

Cousin Helen smiled. "I know," said she, "it sounds like dull work,
learning geography and doing sums up here all by yourself. But I think
if you make the effort you'll be glad by and by. You won't lose so much
ground, you see--won't slip back quite so far in your education. And
then, studying will be like working at a garden, where things don't grow
easily. Every flower you raise will be a sort of triumph, and you will
value it twice as much as a common flower which has cost no trouble."

"Well," said Katy, rather forlornly, "I'll try. But it won't be a bit
nice studying without anybody to study with me. Is there anything else,
Cousin Helen?"

Just then the door creaked, and Elsie timidly put her head into the
room.

"Oh, Elsie, run away!" cried Katy. "Cousin Helen and I are talking.
Don't come just now."

Katy didn't speak unkindly, but Elsie's face fell, and she looked
disappointed. She said nothing, however, but shut the door and
stole away.

Cousin Helen watched this little scene without speaking. For a few
minutes after Elsie was gone she seemed to be thinking.

"Katy," she said at last, "you were saying just now, that one of the
things you were sorry about was that while you were ill you could be of
no use to the children. Do you know, I don't think you have that reason
for being sorry."

"Why not?" said Katy, astonished.

"Because you can be of use. It seems to me that you have more of a
chance with the children now, than you ever could have had when you were
well, and flying about as you used. You might do almost anything you
liked with them."

"I can't think what you mean," said Katy, sadly. "Why, Cousin Helen,
half the time I don't even know where they are, or what they are doing.
And I can't get up and go after them, you know."

"But you can make your room such a delightful place, that they will
want to come to you! Don't you see, a sick person has one splendid
chance--she is always on hand. Everybody who wants her knows just
where to go. If people love her, she gets naturally to be the heart of
the house.

"Once make the little ones feel that your room is the place of all
others to come to when they are tired, or happy, or grieved, or sorry
about anything, and that the Katy who lives there is sure to give them a
loving reception--and the battle is won. For you know we never do
people good by lecturing; only by living their lives with them, and
helping a little here, and a little there, to make them better. And when
one's own life is laid aside for a while, as yours is now, that is the
very time to take up other people's lives, as we can't do when we are
scurrying and bustling over our own affairs. But I didn't mean to preach
a sermon. I'm afraid you're tired."

"No, I'm not a bit," said Katy, holding Cousin Helen's hand tight in
hers; "you can't think how much better I feel. Oh, Cousin Helen, I
will try!"

"It won't be easy," replied her cousin. "There will be days when your
head aches, and you feel cross and fretted, and don't want to think of
any one but yourself. And there'll be other days when Clover and the
rest will come in, as Elsie did just now, and you will be doing
something else, and will feel as if their coming was a bother. But you
must recollect that every time you forget, and are impatient or
selfish, you chill them and drive them farther away. They are loving
little things, and are so sorry for you now, that nothing you do makes
them angry. But by and by they will get used to having you sick, and if
you haven't won them as friends, they will grow away from you as they
get older."

Just then Dr. Carr came in.

"Oh, Papa! you haven't come to take Cousin Helen, have you?" cried Katy.

"Indeed I have," said her father. "I think the big invalid and the
little invalid have talked quite long enough. Cousin Helen looks tired."

For a minute, Katy felt just like crying. But she choked back the tears.
"My first lesson in Patience," she said to herself, and managed to give
a faint, watery smile as Papa looked at her.

"That's right, dear," whispered Cousin Helen, as she bent forward to
kiss her. "And one last word, Katy. In this school, to which you and I
belong, there is one great comfort, and that is that the Teacher is
always at hand. He never goes away. If things puzzle us, there He is,
close by, ready to explain and make all easy. Try to think of this,
darling, and don't be afraid to ask Him for help if the lesson seems
too hard."

Katy had a strange dream that night. She thought she was trying to study
a lesson out of a book which wouldn't come quite open. She could just
see a little bit of what was inside, but it was in a language which she
did not understand. She tried in vain; not a word could she read; and
yet, for all that, it looked so interesting that she longed to go on.

"Oh, if somebody would only help me!" she cried impatiently.

Suddenly a hand came over her shoulder and took hold of the book. It
opened at once, and showed the whole page. And then the forefinger of
the hand began to point to line after line, and as it moved the words
became plain, and Katy could read them easily. She looked up. There,
stooping over her, was a great beautiful Face. The eyes met hers. The
lips smiled.

"Why didn't you ask me before, Little Scholar?" said a voice.

"Why, it is You, just as Cousin Helen told me!" cried Katy.

She must have spoken in her sleep, for Aunt Izzie half woke up, and
said:

"What is it? Do you want anything?"

The dream broke, and Katy roused, to find herself in bed, with the first
sunbeams struggling in at the window, and Aunt Izzie raised on her
elbow, looking at her with a sort of sleepy wonder.




CHAPTER X

ST. NICHOLAS AND ST. VALENTINE


"What are the children all doing to-day?" said Katy laying down "Norway
and the Norwegians," which she was reading for the fourth time; "I
haven't seen them since breakfast."

Aunt Izzie, who was sewing on the other side of the room, looked up
from her work.

"I don't know," she said, "they're over at Cecy's, or somewhere. They'll
be back before long, I guess."

Her voice sounded a little odd and mysterious, but Katy didn't
notice it.

"I thought of such a nice plan yesterday," she went on. "That was that
all of them should hang their stockings up here to-morrow night instead
of in the nursery. Then I could see them open their presents, you know.
Mayn't they, Aunt Izzie? It would be real fun."

"I don't believe there will be any objection," replied her aunt. She
looked as if she were trying not to laugh. Katy wondered what was the
matter with her.

It was more than two months now since Cousin Helen went away, and Winter
had fairly come. Snow was falling out-doors. Katy could see the thick
flakes go whirling past the window, but the sight did not chill her. It
only made the room look warmer and more cosy. It was a pleasant room
now. There was a bright fire in the grate. Everything was neat and
orderly, the air was sweet with mignonette, from a little glass of
flowers which stood on the table, and the Katy who lay in bed, was a
very different-looking Katy from the forlorn girl of the last chapter.

Cousin Helen's visit, though it lasted only one day, did great good. Not
that Katy grew perfect all at once. None of us do that, even in books.
But it is everything to be started in the right path. Katy's feet were
on it now; and though she often stumbled and slipped, and often sat down
discouraged, she kept on pretty steadily, in spite of bad days, which
made her say to herself that she was not getting forward at all.

These bad days, when everything seemed hard, and she herself was cross
and fretful, and drove the children out of her room, cost Katy many
bitter tears. But after them she would pick herself up, and try again,
and harder. And I think that in spite of drawbacks, the little scholar,
on the whole, was learning her lesson pretty well.

Cousin Helen was a great comfort all this time. She never forgot Katy.
Nearly every week some little thing came from her. Sometimes it was a
pencil note, written from her sofa. Sometimes it was an interesting
book, or a new magazine, or some pretty little thing for the room. The
crimson wrapper which Katy wore was one of her presents, so were the
bright chromos of Autumn leaves which hung on the wall, the little stand
for the books--all sorts of things. Katy loved to look about her as she
lay. All the room seemed full of Cousin Helen and her kindness.

"I wish I had something pretty to put into everybody's stocking," she
went on, wistfully; "but I've only got the muffetees for Papa, and these
reins for Phil." She took them from under her pillow as she spoke--gay
worsted affairs, with bells sewed on here and there. She had knit them
herself, a very little bit at a time.

"There's my pink sash," she said suddenly, "I might give that to
Clover. I only wore it once, you know, and I don't think I got any
spots on it. Would you please fetch it and let me see, Aunt Izzie? It's
in the top drawer."

Aunt Izzie brought the sash. It proved to be quite fresh, and they both
decided that it would do nicely for Clover.

"You know I sha'n't want sashes for ever so long," said Katy, in rather
a sad tone, "And this is a beauty."

When she spoke next, her voice was bright again.

"I wish I had something real nice for Elsie. Do you know, Aunt Izzie--I
think Elsie is the dearest little girl that ever was."

"I'm glad you've found it out," said Aunt Izzie, who had always been
specially fond of Elsie.

"What she wants most of all is a writing-desk," continued Katy. "And
Johnnie wants a sled. But, oh dear! these are such big things. And I've
only got two dollars and a quarter."

Aunt Izzie marched out of the room without saying anything. When she
came back she had something folded up in her hand.

"I didn't know what to give you for Christmas, Katy," she said, "because
Helen sends you such a lot of things that there don't seem to be
anything you haven't already. So I thought I'd give you this, and let
you choose for yourself. But if you've set your heart on getting
presents for the children, perhaps you'd rather have it now." So saying,
Aunt Izzie laid on the bed a crisp, new five-dollar bill!

"How good you are!" cried Katy, flushed with pleasure. And indeed Aunt
Izzie _did_ seem to have grown wonderfully good of late. Perhaps Katy
had got hold of her smooth handle!

Being now in possession of seven dollars and a quarter, Katy could
afford to be gorgeously generous. She gave Aunt Izzie an exact
description of the desk she wanted.

"It's no matter about its being very big," said Katy, "but it must have
a blue velvet lining, and an inkstand, with a silver top. And please buy
some little sheets of paper and envelopes, and a pen-handle; the
prettiest you can find. Oh! and there must be a lock and key. Don't
forget that, Aunt Izzie."

"No, I won't. What else?"

"I'd like the sled to be green," went on Katy, "and to have a nice name.
Sky-Scraper would be nice, if there was one. Johnnie saw a sled once
called Sky-Scraper, and she said it was splendid. And if there's money
enough left, Aunty, won't you buy me a real nice book for Dorry, and
another for Cecy, and a silver thimble for Mary? Her old one is full of
holes. Oh! and some candy. And something for Debby and Bridget--some
little thing, you know. I think that's all!"

Was ever seven dollars and a quarter expected to do so much? Aunt Izzie
must have been a witch, indeed, to make it hold out. But she did, and
next day all the precious bundles came home. How Katy enjoyed untying
the strings!

Everything was exactly right.

"There wasn't any Sky-Scraper," said Aunt Izzie, "so I got
'Snow-Skimmer' instead."

"It's beautiful, and I like it just as well," said Katy contentedly.

"Oh, hide them, hide them!" she cried with sudden terror, "somebody's
coming." But the somebody was only Papa, who put his head into the room
as Aunt Izzie, laden with bundles, scuttled across the hall.

Katy was glad to catch him alone. She had a little private secret to
talk over with him. It was about Aunt Izzie, for whom she, as yet, had
no present.

"I thought perhaps you'd get me a book like that one of Cousin Helen's,
which Aunt Izzie liked so much," she said. "I don't recollect the name
exactly. It was something about a Shadow. But I've spent all my money."

"Never mind about that," said Dr. Carr. "We'll make that right. 'The
Shadow of the Cross'--was that it? I'll buy it this afternoon."

"Oh, thank you, Papa! And please get a brown cover, if you can, because
Cousin Helen's was brown. And you won't let Aunt Izzie know, will you?
Be careful, Papa!"

"I'll swallow the book first, brown cover and all," said Papa,
making a funny face. He was pleased to see Katy so interested about
anything again.

These delightful secrets took up so much of her thoughts, that Katy
scarcely found time to wonder at the absence of the children, who
generally haunted her room, but who for three days back had hardly been
seen. However, after supper they all came up in a body, looking very
merry, and as if they had been having a good time somewhere.

"You don't know what we've been doing," began Philly.

"Hush, Phil!" said Clover, in a warning voice. Then she divided the
stockings which she held in her hand. And everybody proceeded to
hang them up.

Dorry hung his on one side of the fireplace, and John hers exactly
opposite. Clover and Phil suspended theirs side by side, on two handles
of the bureau.

"I'm going to put mine here, close to Katy, so that she can see it the
first fing in the mornin'," said Elsie, pinning hers to the bed-post.

Then they all sat down round the fire to write their wishes on bits of
paper, and see whether they would burn, or fly up the chimney. If they
did the latter, it was a sign that Santa Claus had them safe, and would
bring the things wished for.

John wished for a sled and a doll's tea-set, and the continuation of the
Swiss Family Robinson. Dorry's list ran thus:

"A plum-cake,
A new Bibel,
Harry and Lucy,
A Kellidescope,
Everything else Santa Claus likes."

When they had written these lists they threw them into the fire. The
fire gave a flicker just then, and the papers vanished. Nobody saw
exactly how. John thought they flew up chimney, but Dorry said they
didn't. Phil dropped his piece in very solemnly. It flamed for a minute,
then sank into ashes.

"There, you won't get it, whatever it was!" said Dorry. "What did you
write, Phil?"

"Nofing," said Phil, "only just Philly Carr."

The children shouted.

"I wrote 'a writing-desk' on mine," remarked Elsie, sorrowfully, "but it
all burned up."

Katy chuckled when she heard this.

And now Clover produced her list. She read aloud:

"'Strive and Thrive,'
A pair of kid gloves,
A muff,
A good temper!"

Then she dropped it into the fire. Behold, it flew straight up chimney.

"How queer!" said Katy; "none of the rest of them did that."

The truth was, that Clover, who was a canny little mortal, had slipped
across the room and opened the door just before putting her wishes in.
This, of course, made a draft, and sent the paper right upward.

Pretty soon Aunt Izzie came in and swept them all off to bed.

"I know how it will be in the morning," she said, "you'll all be up
and racing about as soon as it is light. So you must get your sleep
now, if ever."

After they had gone, Katy recollected that nobody had offered to hang a
stocking up for her. She felt a little hurt when she thought of it. "But
I suppose they forgot," she said to herself.

A little later Papa and Aunt Izzie came in, and they filled the
stockings. It was great fun. Each was brought to Katy, as she lay in
bed, that she might arrange it as she liked.

The toes were stuffed with candy and oranges. Then came the parcels, all
shapes and sizes, tied in white paper, with ribbons, and labelled.

"What's that?" asked Dr. Carr, as Aunt Izzie rammed a long, narrow
package into Clover's stocking.

"A nail-brush," answered Aunt Izzie. "Clover needed a new one."

How Papa and Katy laughed! "I don't believe Santa Claus ever had such a
thing before," said Dr. Carr.

"He's a very dirty old gentleman, then," observed Aunt Izzie, grimly.

The desk and sled were too big to go into any stocking, so they were
wrapped in paper and hung beneath the other things. It was ten o'clock
before all was done, and Papa and Aunt Izzie went away. Katy lay a long
time watching the queer shapes of the stocking-legs as they dangled in
the firelight. Then she fell asleep.

It seemed only a minute, before something touched her and woke her up.
Behold, it was day-time, and there was Philly in his nightgown, climbing
up on the bed to kiss her! The rest of the children, half dressed, were
dancing about with their stockings in their hands.

"Merry Christmas! Merry Christmas!" they cried. "Oh, Katy, such
beautiful, beautiful things!"

"Oh!" shrieked Elsie, who at that moment spied her desk, "Santa Claus
_did_ bring it, after all! Why, it's got 'from Katy' written on it! Oh,
Katy, it's so sweet, and I'm _so_ happy!" and Elsie hugged Katy, and
sobbed for pleasure.

But what was that strange thing beside the bed! Katy stared, and rubbed
her eyes. It certainly had not been there when she went to sleep. How
had it come?

It was a little evergreen tree planted in a red flower-pot. The pot had
stripes of gilt paper stuck on it, and gilt stars and crosses, which
made it look very gay. The boughs of the tree were hung with oranges,
and nuts, and shiny red apples, and pop-corn balls, and strings of
bright berries. There were also a number of little packages tied with
blue and crimson ribbon, and altogether the tree looked so pretty, that
Katy gave a cry of delighted surprise.

"It's a Christmas-tree for you, because you're sick, you know!" said the
children, all trying to hug her at once.

"We made it ourselves," said Dorry, hopping about on one foot; "I pasted
the black stars on the pot."

"And I popped the corn!" cried Philly.

"Do you like it?" asked Elsie, cuddling close to Katy. "That's my
present--that one tied with a green ribbon. I wish it was nicer! Don't
you want to open 'em right away?"

Of course Katy wanted to. All sorts of things came out of the little
bundles. The children had arranged every parcel themselves. No grown
person had been allowed to help in the least.

Elsie's present was a pen-wiper, with a gray flannel kitten on it.
Johnnie's, a doll's tea-tray of scarlet tin.

"Isn't it beau-ti-ful?" she said, admiringly.

Dorry's gift, I regret to say, was a huge red-and-yellow spider, which
whirred wildly when waved at the end of its string.

"They didn't want me to buy it," said he, "but I did! I thought it would
amoose you. Does it amoose you, Katy?"

"Yes, indeed," said Katy, laughing and blinking as Dorry waved the
spider to and fro before her eyes.

"You can play with it when we ain't here and you're all alone, you
know," remarked Dorry, highly gratified.

"But you don't notice what the tree's standing upon," said Clover.

It was a chair, a very large and curious one, with a long-cushioned
back, which ended in a footstool.

"That's Papa's present," said Clover; "see, it tips back so as to be
just like a bed. And Papa says he thinks pretty soon you can lie on it,
in the window, where you can see us play."

"Does he really?" said Katy, doubtfully. It still hurt her very much to
be touched or moved.

"And see what's tied to the arm of the chair," said Elsie.

It was a little silver bell, with "Katy" engraved on the handle.

"Cousin Helen sent it. It's for you to ring when you want anybody to
come," explained Elsie.

More surprises. To the other arm of the chair was fastened a beautiful
book. It was "The Wide Wide World"--and there Was Katy's name written on
it, 'from her affectionate Cecy.' On it stood a great parcel of dried
cherries from Mrs. Hall. Mrs. Hall had the most _delicious_ dried
cherries, the children thought.

"How perfectly lovely everybody is!" said Katy, with grateful tears
in her eyes.

That was a pleasant Christmas. The children declared it to be the nicest
they had ever had. And though Katy couldn't quite say that, she enjoyed
it too, and was very happy.

It was several weeks before she was able to use the chair, but when once
she became accustomed to it, it proved very comfortable. Aunt Izzie
would dress her in the morning, tip the chair back till it was on a
level with the bed, and then, very gently and gradually, draw her over
on to it. Wheeling across the room was always painful, but sitting in
the window and looking out at the clouds, the people going by, and the
children playing in the snow, was delightful. How delightful nobody
knows, excepting those who, like Katy, have lain for six months in bed,
without a peep at the outside world. Every day she grew brighter and
more cheerful.

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