What Katy Did (Puffin Classics Relaunch)

by Susan Coolidge

  ‘Y-e-s,’ replied Katy, doubtfully, ‘only a great, great deal prettier.’

  By-and-by Papa carried Cousin Helen upstairs. All the children wanted to go too, but he told them she was tired, and must rest. So they went out-doors to play till teatime.

  ‘Oh, do let me take up the tray,’ cried Katy at the tea table, as she watched Aunt Izzie getting ready Cousin Helen’s supper. Such a nice supper! Cold chicken, and raspberries and cream, and tea in a pretty pink-and-white china cup. And such a snow-white napkin as Aunt Izzie spread over the tray!

  ‘No, indeed,’ said Aunt Izzie. ‘You’ll drop it the first thing.’ But Katy’s eyes begged so hard, that Dr Carr said, ‘Yes, let her, Izzie; I like to see the girls useful.’

  So Katy, proud of the commission, took the tray and carried it carefully across the hall. There was a bowl of flowers on the table. As she passed she was struck with a bright idea. She set down the tray, and picking out a rose, laid it on the napkin beside the saucer of crimson raspberries. It looked very pretty, and Katy smiled to herself with pleasure.

  ‘What are you stopping for?’ called Aunt Izzie, from the dining-room. ‘Do be careful, Katy I really think Bridget had better take it.’

  ‘Oh, no, no!’ protested Katy. ‘I’m most up already.’ And she sped upstairs as fast as she could go. Luckless speed! She had just reached the door of the Blue-room when she tripped over her bootlace, which, as usual, was dangling, made a mis-step, and stumbled. She caught at the door to save herself; the door flew open; and Katy, with the tray, cream, raspberries, rose and all, descended in a confused heap upon the carpet.

  ‘I told you so!’ exclaimed Aunt Izzie from the bottom of the stairs.

  Katy never forgot how kind Cousin Helen was on this occasion. She was in bed, and was of course a good deal startled at the sudden crash and tumble on her floor. But after one little jump, nothing could have been sweeter than the way in which she comforted poor crestfallen Katy, and made so merry over the accident that even Aunt Izzie almost forgot to scold. The broken dishes were piled up, and the carpet made clean again, while Aunt Izzie prepared another tray just as nice as the first.

  ‘Please let Katy bring it up!’ pleaded Cousin Helen, in her pleasant voice; ‘I am sure she will be careful this time. And Katy, I want just such another rose on the napkin. I guess that was your doing – wasn’t it?’

  Katy was careful. This time all went well. The tray was placed safely on a little table beside the bed, and Katy sat watching Cousin Helen eat her supper with a warm, loving feeling at her heart. I think we are scarcely ever so grateful to people as when they help us to get back our own self-esteem.

  Cousin Helen hadn’t much appetite, though she declared everything was delicious. Katy could see that she was very tired.

  ‘Now,’ she said, when she had finished, ‘if you’ll shake up this pillow, so – and move this other pillow a little, I think I will settle myself to sleep. Thanks – that’s just right. Why, Katy dear, you are a born nurse. Now kiss me. Good night! Tomorrow we will have a nice talk.’

  Katy went downstairs very happy. ‘Cousin Helen’s perfectly lovely,’ she told Clover. ‘And she’s got on the most beautiful night-gown, all lace and ruffles. It’s just like a night-gown in a book.’

  ‘Isn’t it wicked to care about clothes when you’re sick?’ questioned Cecy.

  ‘I don’t believe Cousin Helen could do anything wicked,’ said Katy.

  ‘I told Ma that she had on bracelets, and Ma said she feared your cousin was a worldly person,’ retorted Cecy, primming up her lips.

  Katy and Clover were quite distressed at this opinion. They talked about it while they were undressing.

  ‘I mean to ask Cousin Helen tomorrow,’ said Katy.

  Next morning the children got up very early. They were so glad that it was vacation! If it hadn’t been, they would have been forced to go to school without seeing Cousin Helen, for she didn’t waken till late. They grew so impatient of the delay, and went upstairs so often to listen at the door, and see if she were moving, that Aunt Izzie finally had to order them off. Katy rebelled against this order a good deal, but she consoled herself by going into the garden and picking the prettiest flowers she could find, to give to Cousin Helen the moment she should see her.

  When Aunt Izzie let her go up, Cousin Helen was lying on the sofa all dressed for the day in a fresh blue muslin, with blue ribbons, and cunning bronze slippers with rosettes on the toes. The sofa had been wheeled round with its back to the light. There was a cushion with a pretty fluted cover that Katy had never seen before, and several other things were scattered about, which gave the room quite a different air. All the house was neat, but somehow Aunt Izzie’s rooms never were pretty. Children’s eyes are quick to perceive such things, and Katy saw at once that the Blue-room had never looked like this.

  Cousin Helen was white and tired, but her eyes and smile were as bright as ever. She was delighted with the flowers which Katy presented rather shyly.

  ‘Oh, how lovely!’ she said; ‘I must put them in water right away. Katy dear, don’t you want to bring that little vase on the bureau and set it on this chair beside me? And please pour a little water into it first.’

  ‘What a beauty!’ cried Katy, as she lifted the graceful white cup swung on a gilt stand. ‘Is it yours, Cousin Helen?’

  ‘Yes, it is my pet vase. It stands on a little table beside me at home, and I fancied that the water cure would seem more home-like if I had it with me there, so I brought it along. But why do you look so puzzled, Katy? Does it seem queer that a vase should travel about in a trunk?’

  ‘No,’ said Katy, slowly, ‘I was only thinking – Cousin Helen, is it worldly to have pretty things when you’re sick?’

  Cousin Helen laughed heartily.

  ‘What put that idea into your head?’ she asked.

  ‘Cecy said so when I told her about your beautiful night-gown.’

  Cousin Helen smiled again.

  ‘Well,’ she said, ‘I’ll tell you what I think, Katy. Pretty things are no more “worldly” than ugly ones, except when they spoil us by making us vain, or careless of the comfort of other people. And sickness is such a disagreeable thing in itself that, unless sick people take great pains, they soon grow to be eyesores to themselves and everybody about them. I don’t think it is possible for an invalid to be too particular. And when one has the backache and the headache and the all-over-ache,’ she added, smiling, ‘there isn’t much danger of growing vain because of a ruffle more or less on one’s night-gown, or a bit of bright ribbon.’

  Then she began to arrange the flowers, touching each separate one gently, as if she loved it.

  ‘What a queer noise!’ she exclaimed, suddenly stopping.

  It was queer – a sort of snuffling and snorting sound, as if a walrus or a sea-horse were promenading up and down in the hall. Katy opened the door. Behold! there were John and Dorry, very red in the face from flattening their noses against the keyhole, in a vain attempt to see if Cousin Helen were up and ready to receive company.

  ‘Oh, let them come in!’ cried Cousin Helen from her sofa.

  So they came in, followed before long by Clover and Elsie. Such a merry morning as they had! Cousin Helen proved to possess a perfect genius for story-telling, and for suggesting games which could be played about her sofa, and did not make more noise than she could bear. Aunt Izzie, dropping in about eleven o’clock, found them having such a good time that, almost before she knew it, she was drawn into the game too. Nobody had ever heard of such a thing before! There sat Aunt Izzie on the floor, with three long paper quills stuck in her hair, playing ‘I’m a genteel Lady, always genteel’, in the jolliest manner possible. The children were so enchanted at the spectacle that they could hardly attend to the game, and were always forgetting how many ‘horns’ they had.

  Clover privately thought that Cousin Helen must be a witch; and Papa, when he came home at noon, said almost the same thing.

  ‘What ha
ve you been doing to them, Helen?’ he inquired, as he opened the door and saw the merry circle on the carpet. Aunt Izzie’s hair was half pulled down, and Philly was rolling over and over in convulsions of laughter. But Cousin Helen said she hadn’t done anything, and pretty soon Papa was on the floor too, playing away as fast as the rest.

  ‘I must put a stop to this,’ he cried, when everybody was tired of laughing, and everybody’s head was stuck as full of paper quills as a porcupine’s back. ‘Cousin Helen will be worn out. Run away, all of you, and don’t come near this door again till the clock strikes four. Do you hear, chicks? Run – run! Shoo! shoo!’

  The children scuttled away like a brood of fowls – all but Katy. ‘Oh, Papa, I’ll be so quiet!’ she pleaded. ‘Mightn’t I stay just till the dinner-bell rings?’

  ‘Do let her!’ said Cousin Helen. So Papa said, ‘Yes.’

  Katy sat on the floor holding Cousin Helen’s hand, and listening to her talk with Papa. It interested her, though it was about things and people she did not know.

  ‘How is Alex?’ asked Dr Carr, at length.

  ‘Quite well, now,’ replied Cousin Helen, with one of her brightest looks. ‘He was run down and tired in the spring, and we were a little anxious about him; but Emma persuaded him to take a fortnight’s vacation, and he came back all right.’

  ‘Do you see them often?’

  ‘Almost every day. And little Helen comes every day, you know, for her lessons.’

  ‘Is she as pretty as she used to be?’

  ‘Oh yes – prettier, I think. She is a lovely little creature. Having her so much with me is one of my greatest treats. Alex tries to think that she looks a little as I used to. But that is a compliment so great I dare not appropriate it.’ Dr Carr stooped and kissed Cousin Helen as if he could not help it. ‘My dear child,’ he said. That was all; but something in the tone made Katy curious.

  ‘Papa,’ she said after dinner, ‘who is Alex, that you and Cousin Helen were talking about?’

  ‘Why, Katy? What makes you want to know?’

  ‘I can’t exactly tell – only Cousin Helen looked so; and you kissed her; and I thought perhaps it was something interesting.’

  ‘So it is,’ said Dr Carr, drawing her on to his knee. ‘I’ve a mind to tell you about it, Katy, because you’re old enough to see how beautiful it is, and wise enough, I hope, not to chatter or ask questions. Alex is the name of somebody who long ago, when Cousin Helen was well and strong, she loved, and expected to marry.’

  ‘Oh, why didn’t she?’ cried Katy.

  ‘She met with a dreadful accident,’ continued Dr Carr. ‘For a long time they thought she would die. Then she grew slowly better, and the doctors told her that she might live a good many years, but that she would have to lie on her sofa always, and be helpless, and a cripple.

  ‘Alex felt dreadfully when he heard this. He wanted to marry Cousin Helen just the same, and be her nurse, and take care of her always; but she would not consent. She broke the engagement, and told him that some day she hoped he would love somebody else well enough to marry her. So, after a good many years he did, and now he and his wife live next door to Cousin Helen, and are her dearest friends. Their little girl is named ‘Helen’. All their plans are talked over with her, and there is nobody in the world they think so much of.’

  ‘But doesn’t it make Cousin Helen feel bad when she sees them walking about and enjoying themselves and she can’t move?’ asked Katy.

  ‘No,’ said Dr Carr, ‘it doesn’t, because Cousin Helen is half an angel already, and loves other people better than herself. I’m very glad she could come here for once. She’s an example to us all, Katy, and I couldn’t ask anything better than to have my little girls take pattern after her.’

  ‘It must be awful to be sick,’ soliloquized Katy, after Papa was gone. ‘Why if I had to stay in bed a whole week – I should die, I know I should.’

  Poor Katy! It seemed to her, as it does to almost all young people, that there is nothing in the world so easy as to die the moment things go wrong!

  This conversation with Papa made Cousin Helen doubly interesting to Katy’s eyes. ‘It was just like something in a book’, to be in the same house with the heroine of a love-story so sad and sweet.

  The play that afternoon was much interrupted, for every few minutes somebody had to run and see if it wasn’t four o’clock. The instant the hour came all six children galloped upstairs.

  ‘I think we’ll tell stories this time,’ said Cousin Helen.

  So they told stories. Cousin Helen’s were the best of all. There was one of them about a robber, which sent delightful chills creeping down all their backs. All but Philly. He was so excited that he grew warlike.

  ‘I ain’t afraid of robbers,’ he declared, strutting up and down. ‘When they come I shall just cut them in two with my sword which Papa gave me. They did come once. I did cut them in two – three, five, eleven of ’em. You’ll see!’

  But that evening, after the youngest children were gone to bed, and Katy and Clover were sitting in the Blue-room, a lamentable howling was heard from the nursery. Clover ran to see what was the matter. Behold – there was Phil, sitting up in bed, and crying for help.

  ‘There’s robbers under the bed,’ he sobbed; ‘ever so many robbers.’

  ‘Why no, Philly!’ said Clover, peeping under the valance to satisfy him; ‘there isn’t anybody there.’

  ‘Yes, there is, I tell you,’ declared Phil holding her tight. ‘I heard one. They were chewing my india-rubbers.’

  ‘Poor little fellow!’ said Cousin Helen, when Clover, having pacified Phil, came back to report. ‘It’s a warning against robber stories. But this one ended so well that I didn’t think of anybody’s being frightened.’

  It was no use, after this, for Aunt Izzie to make rules about going into the Blue-room. She might as well have ordered flies to keep away from a sugar-bowl. By hook or by crook, the children would get upstairs. Whenever Aunt Izzie went in she was sure to find them there, just as close to Cousin Helen as they could get. And Cousin Helen begged her not to interfere.

  ‘We have only three or four days to be together,’ she said. ‘Let them come as much as they like. It won’t hurt me a bit.’

  Little Elsie clung with a passionate love to this new friend. Cousin Helen had sharp eyes. She saw the wistful look in Elsie’s face at once, and took special pains to be sweet and tender to her. This preference made Katy jealous. She couldn’t bear to share her cousin with anybody.

  When the last evening came, and they went up after tea to the Blue-room, Cousin Helen was opening a box which had just come by express.

  ‘It is a Good-bye Box,’ she said. ‘All of you must sit down in a row, and when I hide my hands behind me, so, you must choose in turn which you will take.’

  So they all chose in turn, ‘Which hand will you have, the right or the left?’ and Cousin Helen, with the air of a wise fairy, brought out from behind her pillow something pretty for each one.

  First came a vase exactly like her own, which Katy had admired so much. Katy screamed with delight as it was placed in her hands.

  ‘Oh, how lovely! how lovely!’ she cried, ‘I’ll keep it as long as I live and breathe.’

  ‘If you do, it’ll be the first time you ever kept anything for a week without breaking it,’ remarked Aunt Izzie.

  Next came a pretty purple pocket-book for Clover. It was just what she wanted, for she had lost her portemonnaie. Then a cunning little locket on a bit of velvet ribbon, which Cousin Helen tied round Elsie’s neck.

  ‘There’s a piece of my hair in it,’ she said. ‘Why, Elsie, darling, what’s the matter? Don’t cry so!’

  ‘Oh, you’re s–o beautiful, and s–o sweet!’ sobbed Elsie; ‘and you’re go–o–ing away.’

  Dorry had a box of dominoes, and John a solitaire board. For Phil there appeared a book – The History of the Robber Cat.

  ‘That will remind you of the night when the thieves came an
d chewed your india-rubbers,’ said Cousin Helen, with a mischievous smile. They all laughed, Phil loudest of all.

  Nobody was forgotten. There was a note-book for Papa, and a set of ivory tablets for Aunt Izzie. Even Cecy was remembered. Her present was The Book of Golden Deeds, with all sorts of stories about boys and girls who had done brave and good things. She was almost too pleased to speak.

  ‘Oh, thank you, Cousin Helen!’ she said at last. Cecy wasn’t a cousin, but she and the Carr children were in the habit of sharing their aunts and uncles and relations generally, as they did other good things.

  Next day came the sad parting. All the little ones stood at the gate, to wave their pocket-handkerchiefs as the carriage drove away. When it was quite out of sight, Katy rushed off to ‘weep a little weep’, all by herself.

  ‘Papa said he wished we were all like Cousin Helen,’ she thought, as she wiped her eyes, ‘and I mean to try, though I don’t suppose if I tried a thousand years I should ever get to be half so good. I’ll study, and keep my things in order, and be ever so kind to the little ones. Dear me – if only Aunt Izzie was Cousin Helen, how easy it would be! Never mind – I’ll think about her all the time, and I’ll begin tomorrow.’

  8

  Tomorrow

  ‘Tomorrow I will begin,’ thought Katy, as she dropped asleep that night. How often we all do so! And what a pity it is that when morning comes and tomorrow is today we so frequently wake up feeling quite differently; careless or impatient and not a bit inclined to do the fine things we planned overnight.

  Sometimes it seems as if there must be wicked little imps in the world, who are kept tied up so long as the sun shines, but who creep into our bedrooms when we are asleep to tease us and ruffle our tempers. Else, why, when we go to rest good-natured and pleasant, should we wake up so cross? Now there was Katy. Her last sleepy thought was an intention to be an angel from that time on, and as much like Cousin Helen as she could; and when she opened her eyes, she was all out of sorts and as fractious as a bear! Old Mary said that she got out of bed on the wrong side.