"I knew they wouldn't hurt me," he said loftily. "Felicity's so fond of making a fuss over everything."
Nevertheless, when it grew dark and we returned to the house, I noticed that Dan was rather pale and quiet. He lay down on the kitchen sofa.
"Don't you feel all right, Dan?" I whispered anxiously.
"Shut up," he said.
I shut up.
Felicity and Cecily were setting out a lunch in the pantry when we were all startled by a loud groan from the sofa.
"Oh, I'm sick—I'm awful sick," said Dan abjectly, all the defiance and bravado gone out of him.
We all went to pieces, except Cecily, who alone retained her presence of mind.
"Have you got a pain in your stomach?" she demanded.
"I've got an awful pain here, if that's where my stomach is," moaned Dan, putting his hand on a portion of his anatomy considerably below his stomach. "Oh—oh—oh!"
"Go for Uncle Roger," commanded Cecily, pale but composed. "Felicity, put on the kettle. Dan, I'm going to give you mustard and warm water."
The mustard and warm water produced its proper effect promptly, but gave Dan no relief. He continued to writhe and groan. Uncle Roger, who had been summoned from his own place, went at once for the doctor, telling Peter to go down the hill for Mrs. Ray. Peter went, but returned accompanied by Sara only. Mrs. Ray and Judy Pineau were both away. Sara might better have stayed home; she was of no use, and could only add to the general confusion, wandering aimlessly about, crying and asking if Dan was going to die.
Cecily took charge of things. Felicity might charm the palate, and the Story Girl bind captive the soul; but when pain and sickness wrung the brow it was Cecily who was the ministering angel. She made the writhing Dan go to bed. She made him swallow every available antidote which was recommended in "the doctor's book;" and she applied hot cloths to him until her faithful little hands were half scalded off.
There was no doubt Dan was suffering intense pain. He moaned and writhed, and cried for his mother.
"Oh, isn't it dreadful!" said Felicity, wringing her hands as she walked the kitchen floor. "Oh, why doesn't the doctor come? I TOLD Dan the bad berries were poison. But surely they can't kill people ALTOGETHER."
"Pa's cousin died of eating something forty years ago," sobbed Sara Ray.
"Hold your tongue," said Peter in a fierce whisper. "You oughter have more sense than to say such things to the girls. They don't want to be any worse scared than they are."
"But Pa's cousin DID die," reiterated Sara.
"My Aunt Jane used to rub whisky on for a pain," suggested Peter.
"We haven't any whisky," said Felicity disapprovingly. "This is a temperance house."
"But rubbing whisky on the OUTSIDE isn't any harm," argued Peter. "It's only when you take it inside it is bad for you."
"Well, we haven't any, anyhow," said Felicity. "I suppose blueberry wine wouldn't do in its place?"
Peter did not think blueberry wine would be any good.
It was ten o'clock before Dan began to get better; but from that time he improved rapidly. When the doctor, who had been away from home when Uncle Roger reached Markdale, came at half past ten, he found his patient very weak and white, but free from pain.
Dr. Grier patted Cecily on the head, told her she was a little brick, and had done just the right thing, examined some of the fatal berries and gave it as his opinion that they were probably poisonous, administered some powders to Dan and advised him not to tamper with forbidden fruit in future, and went away.
Mrs. Ray now appeared, looking for Sara, and said she would stay all night with us.
"I'll be much obliged to you if you will," said Uncle Roger. "I feel a bit shook. I urged Janet and Alec to go to Halifax, and took the responsibility of the children while they were away, but I didn't know what I was letting myself in for. If anything had happened I could never have forgiven myself—though I believe it's beyond the power of mortal man to keep watch over the things children WILL eat. Now, you young fry, get straight off to your beds. Dan is out of danger, and you can't do any more good. Not that any of you have done much, except Cecily. She's got a head of her shoulders."
"It's been a horrid day all through," said Felicity drearily, as we climbed the stairs.
"I suppose we made it horrid ourselves," said the Story Girl candidly.
"But it'll be a good story to tell sometime," she added.
"I'm awful tired and thankful," sighed Cecily.
We all felt that way.
CHAPTER XV. A DISOBEDIENT BROTHER
Dan was his own man again in the morning, though rather pale and weak; he wanted to get up, but Cecily ordered him to stay in bed. Fortunately Felicity forgot to repeat the command, so Dan did stay in bed. Cecily carried his meals to him, and read a Henty book to him all her spare time. The Story Girl went up and told him wondrous tales; and Sara Ray brought him a pudding she had made herself. Sara's intentions were good, but the pudding—well, Dan fed most of it to Paddy, who had curled himself up at the foot of the bed, giving the world assurance of a cat by his mellifluous purring.
"Ain't he just a great old fellow?" said Dan. "He knows I'm kind of sick, just as well as a human. He never pays no attention to me when I'm well."
Felix and Peter and I were required to help Uncle Roger in some carpentering work that day, and Felicity indulged in one of the house-cleaning orgies so dear to her soul; so that it was evening before we were all free to meet in the orchard and loll on the grasses of Uncle Stephen's Walk. In August it was a place of shady sweetness, fragrant with the odour of ripening apples, full of dear, delicate shadows. Through its openings we looked afar to the blue rims of the hills and over green, old, tranquil fields, lying the sunset glow. Overhead the lacing leaves made a green, murmurous roof. There was no such thing as hurry in the world, while we lingered there and talked of "cabbages and kings." A tale of the Story Girl's, wherein princes were thicker than blackberries, and queens as common as buttercups, led to our discussion of kings. We wondered what it would be like to be a king. Peter thought it would be fine, only kind of inconvenient, wearing a crown all the time.
"Oh, but they don't," said the Story Girl. "Maybe they used to once, but now they wear hats. The crowns are just for special occasions. They look very much like other people, if you can go by their photographs."
"I don't believe it would be much fun as a steady thing," said Cecily.
"I'd like to SEE a queen though. That is one thing I have against the Island—you never have a chance to see things like that here."
"The Prince of Wales was in Charlottetown once," said Peter. "My Aunt Jane saw him quite close by."
"That was before we were born, and such a thing won't happen again until after we're dead," said Cecily, with very unusual pessimism.
"I think queens and kings were thicker long ago," said the Story Girl. "They do seem dreadfully scarce now. There isn't one in this country anywhere. Perhaps I'll get a glimpse of some when I go to Europe."
Well, the Story Girl was destined to stand before kings herself, and she was to be one whom they delighted to honour. But we did not know that, as we sat in the old orchard. We thought it quite sufficiently marvellous that she should expect to have the chance of just seeing them.
"Can a queen do exactly as she pleases?" Sara Ray wanted to know.
"Not nowadays," explained the Story Girl.
"Then I don't see any use in being one," Sara decided.
"A king can't do as he pleases now, either," said Felix. "If he tries to, and if it isn't what pleases other people, the Parliament or something squelches him."
"Isn't 'squelch' a lovely word?" said the Story Girl irrelevantly. "It's so expressive. Squ-u-e-l-ch!"