What Katy Did (Puffin Classics Relaunch)

by Susan Coolidge

  ‘Papa!’ she cried the first thing, ‘must I lie here as much as a week?’

  ‘My darling, I’m afraid you must,’ replied her father, who looked worried and very grave.

  ‘Dear, dear!’ sobbed Katy, ‘how can I bear it?’

  9

  Dismal Days

  If anybody had told Katy that first afternoon that at the end of a week she would still be in bed and in pain, and with no time fixed for getting up, I think it would have almost killed her. She was so restless and eager, that to lie still seemed one of the hardest things in the world. But to lie still and have her back ache all the time was worse yet.

  Day after day she asked Papa with quivering lip: ‘Mayn’t I get up and go downstairs this morning?’ And when he shook his head, the lip would quiver more and tears would come. But if she tried to get up it hurt her so much that, in spite of herself, she was glad to sink back again on the soft pillows and mattress, which felt so comfortable to her poor bones.

  Then there came a time when Katy didn’t even ask to be allowed to get up. A time when sharp, dreadful pain, such as she never imagined before, took hold of her. When days and nights got all confused and tangled up together, and Aunt Izzie never seemed to go to bed. A time when Papa was constantly in her room. When other doctors came and stood over her, and punched and felt her back, and talked to each other in low whispers. It was all like a long, bad dream, from which she couldn’t wake up, though she tried ever so hard. Now and then she would rouse a little, and catch the sound of voices, or be aware that Clover or Elsie stood at the door crying softly; or that Aunt Izzie in creaking slippers, was going about the room on tiptoe. Then all these things would slip away again, and she would drop off into a dark place, where there was nothing but pain, and sleep, which made her forget pain, and so seemed the best thing in the world.

  We will hurry over this time, for it is hard to think of our bright Katy in such a sad plight. By-and-by the pain grew less and the sleep quieter. Then, the pain became easier still, Katy woke up as it were; began to take notice of what was going on about her; to put questions.

  ‘How long have I been sick?’ she asked, one morning.

  ‘It is four weeks, yesterday,’ replied Papa.

  ‘Four weeks!’ said Katy. ‘Why, I didn’t know it was so long as that. Was I very sick, Papa?’

  ‘Very, dear. But you are a great deal better now.’

  ‘How did I hurt myself when I tumbled out of the swing?’ asked Katy, who was in an unusually wakeful mood.

  ‘I don’t believe I could make you understand, dear.’

  ‘But try, Papa!’

  ‘Well did you know that you had a long bone down your back called a spine?’

  ‘I thought that was a disease,’ said Katy; ‘Clover said that Cousin Helen had the spine.’

  ‘No – the spine is a bone. It is made up of a row of smaller bones – or knobs – and in the middle of it is a sort of rope of nerves called the spinal cord. Nerves, you know, are the things we feel with. Well, this spinal cord is rolled up for safe keeping in a soft wrapping called membrane. When you fell out of the swing you struck against one of these knobs and bruised the membrane inside, and the nerve inflamed and gave you a fever in the back. Do you see?’

  ‘A little,’ said Katy, not quite understanding, but too tired to question further. After she had rested awhile, she said, ‘Is the fever well now, Papa? Can I get up again and go downstairs right away?’

  ‘Not right away, I’m afraid,’ said Dr Carr, trying to speak cheerfully.

  Katy didn’t ask any more questions then. Another week passed, and another. The pain was almost gone. It only came back now and then for a few minutes. She could sleep now, and eat, and be raised in bed without feeling giddy. But still the once active limbs hung heavy and lifeless, and she was not able to walk, or even stand alone.

  ‘My legs feel so queer,’ she said, one morning; ‘they are just like the Prince’s legs which were turned to black marble in the Arabian Nights. What do you suppose is the reason, Papa? Won’t they feel natural soon?’

  ‘Not soon,’ answered Dr Carr. Then he said to himself: ‘Poor child! she had better know the truth.’ So he went on, aloud: ‘I am afraid, my darling, that you must make up your mind to stay in bed a long time.’

  ‘How long?’ said Katy, looking frightened; ‘a month more?’

  ‘I can’t tell exactly how long,’ answered her father. ‘The doctors think, as I do, that the injury to your spine is one which you will outgrow by-and-by, because you are so young and strong. But it may take a good while to do it. It may be that you will have to lie here for months, or it may be more. The only cure for such a hurt is time and patience. It is hard, darling’ – for Katy began to sob wildly – ‘but you have hope to help you along. Think of poor Cousin Helen, bearing all these years without hope!’

  ‘Oh, Papa!’ gasped Katy, between her sobs, ‘doesn’t it seem dreadful that just getting into the swing for a few minutes should do so much harm? Such a little thing as that!’

  ‘Yes, such a little thing!’ repeated Dr Carr, sadly. ‘And it was only a little thing too, forgetting Aunt Izzie’s order about the swing. Just for the want of the small “horse-shoe nail” of obedience, Katy.’

  Years afterwards Katy told somebody that the six longest weeks of her life were those which followed this conversation with Papa. Now that she knew there was no chance of getting well at once, the days dragged dreadfully.

  Each seemed duller and dismaler than the day before. She lost heart about herself, and took no interest in anything. Aunt Izzie brought her books, but she didn’t want to read, or to sew. Nothing amused her. Clover and Cecy would come to sit with her, but hearing them tell about their plays, and the things they had been doing, made her cry so miserably that Aunt Izzie wouldn’t let them come often. They were very sorry for Katy, but the room was so gloomy and Katy so cross that they didn’t mind much not being allowed to see her. In those days Katy made Aunt Izzie keep the blinds shut tight, and she lay in the dark, thinking how miserable she was, and how wretched all the rest of her life was going to be. Everybody was very kind and patient with her, but she was too selfishly miserable to notice it. Aunt Izzie ran up and downstairs, and was on her feet all day, trying to get something which would please her, but Katy hardly said, ‘Thank you,’ and never saw how tired Aunt Izzie looked. So long as she was forced to stay in bed Katy could not be grateful for anything that was done for her.

  But doleful as the days were, they were not so bad as the nights, when, after Aunt Izzie was asleep, Katy would lie wide awake, and have long, hopeless fits of crying. At these times she would think of all the plans she had made for doing beautiful things when she was grown up. ‘And now I shall never do any of them,’ she would say to herself; ‘only just lie here. Papa says I might get well by-and-by, but I shan’t, I know I shan’t. And even if I do, I shall have wasted all these years; and the others will grow up and get ahead of me, and I shan’t be a comfort to them or to anybody else. Oh, dear! oh, dear! how dreadful it is!’

  The first thing which broke in upon this sad state of affairs was a letter from Cousin Helen, which Papa brought one morning and handed to Aunt Izzie.

  ‘Helen tells me she is going home this week,’ said Aunt Izzie from the window, where she had gone to read the letter. ‘Well, I’m sorry, but I think she is quite right not to stop. It’s just as she says: one invalid at a time is enough in a house. I’m sure I have my hands full with Katy.’

  ‘Oh, Aunt Izzie!’ cried Katy, ‘is Cousin Helen coming this way when she goes home? Oh! do make her stop. If it’s just for one day, do ask her! I want to see her so much! I can’t tell you how much! Won’t you? Please! Please, dear Papa.’

  She was almost crying with eagerness.

  ‘Why, yes, darling, if you wish it so much,’ said Dr Carr. ‘It will cost Aunt Izzie some trouble, but she’s so kind that I’m sure she’ll manage it if it is to give you so much pleasure. Can’t you, Izzie?�
�� And he looked eagerly at his sister.

  ‘Of course I will!’ said Aunt Izzie, heartily. Katy was so glad, that, for the first time in her life, she threw her arms round Aunt Izzie’s neck and kissed her.

  ‘Thank you, dear Auntie!’ she said.

  Aunt Izzie looked as pleased as could be. She had a warm heart hidden under her fidgety ways – only Katy had never been sick before to find it out.

  For the next week Katy was feverish with expectation. At last Cousin Helen came. This time Katy was not on the steps to welcome her, but after a little while Papa brought Cousin Helen in his arms, and sat her in a big chair beside the bed.

  ‘How dark it is,’ she said, after they had kissed each other and talked for a minute or two; ‘I can’t see your face at all. Would it hurt your eyes to have a little more light?’

  ‘Oh, no,’ answered Katy. ‘It don’t hurt my eyes, only I hate to have the sun come in. It makes me feel worse, somehow.’

  ‘Push the blind open a little bit then, Clover;’ and Clover did so.

  ‘Now I can see,’ said Cousin Helen.

  It was a forlorn-looking child enough which she saw lying before her. Katy’s face had grown thin, and her eyes had red circles about them from continual crying. Her hair had been brushed twice that morning by Aunt Izzie, but Katy had run her fingers impatiently through it, till it stood out above her head like a frowsy bush. She wore a calico dressing-gown, which, though clean, was particularly ugly in pattern; and the room, for all its tidiness, had a dismal look, with the chairs set up against the wall, and a row of medicine-bottles on the chimney-piece.

  ‘Isn’t it horrid?’ sighed Katy, as Cousin Helen looked around. ‘Everything’s horrid. But I don’t mind so much now that you’ve come. Oh, Cousin Helen, I’ve had such a dreadful, dreadful time!’

  ‘I know,’ said her cousin, pityingly. ‘I’ve heard all about it, Katy, and I’m very sorry for you! It is a hard trial, my poor darling.’

  ‘But how do you do it?’ cried Katy. ‘How do you manage to be so sweet and beautiful and patient when you’re feeling badly all the time, and can’t do anything, or walk, or stand?’ – her voice was lost in sobs.

  Cousin Helen didn’t say anything for a little while. She just sat and stroked Katy’s hand.

  ‘Katy,’ she said at last, ‘has Papa told you that he thinks you are going to get well by-and-by?’

  ‘Yes,’ replied Katy, ‘he did say so. But perhaps it won’t be for a long, long time. And I want to do so many things. And now I can’t do anything at all!’

  ‘What sort of things?’

  ‘Study, and help people, and become famous. And I wanted to teach the children. Mamma said I must take care of them, and I meant to. And now I can’t go to school or learn anything myself. And if ever I do get well, the children will be almost grown up and they won’t need me.’

  ‘But why must you wait till you get well?’ asked Cousin Helen, smiling.

  ‘Why, Cousin Helen, what can I do lying here in bed?’

  ‘A good deal. Shall I tell you, Katy, what it seems to me that I should say to myself if I were in your place?’

  ‘Yes, please,’ replied Katy, wonderingly.

  ‘I should say this: “Now, Katy Carr, you wanted to go to school, and learn to be wise and useful, and here’s a chance for you. God is going to let you go to His school – where He teaches all sorts of beautiful things to people. Perhaps He will only keep you for one term, or perhaps it may be for three or four; but whichever it is, you must make the very most of the chance, because He gives it to you Himself.”’

  ‘But what is the school?’ asked Katy. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

  ‘It is called the School of Pain,’ replied Cousin Helen, with her sweetest smile. ‘And the place where the lessons are to be learned is this room of yours. The rules of the school are pretty hard, but the good scholars, who keep them best, find out after a while how right and kind they are. And the lessons aren’t easy, either, but the more you study the more interesting they become.’

  ‘What are the lessons?’ asked Katy, getting interested, and beginning to feel as if Cousin Helen were telling her a story.

  ‘Well, there’s the lesson of Patience. That’s one of the hardest studies. You can’t learn much of it at a time, but every bit you get by heart makes the next bit easier. And there’s the lesson of Cheerfulness. And the lesson of Making the Best of Things.’

  ‘Sometimes there isn’t anything to make the best of,’ remarked Katy, dolefully.

  ‘Yes, there is, always! Everything in the world has two handles. Didn’t you know that? One is a smooth handle. If you take hold of it the thing comes up lightly and easily, but if you seize the rough handle it hurts your hand and the thing is hard to lift. Some people always manage to get hold of the wrong handle.’

  ‘Is Aunt Izzie a “thing”?’ asked Katy. Cousin Helen was glad to hear her laugh.

  ‘Yes – Aunt Izzie is a thing – and she has a nice pleasant handle too, if you just try to find it. And the children are “things” also, in one sense. All their handles are different. You know human beings aren’t made just alike, like red flower-pots. We have to feel and guess before we can make out just how other people go, and how we ought to take hold of them. It is very interesting – I advise you to try it. And while you are trying you will learn all sorts of things which will help you to help others.’

  ‘If I only could!’ sighed Katy. ‘Are there any other studies in the school, Cousin Helen?’

  ‘Yes, there’s the lesson of Hopefulness. That class has ever so many teachers. The Sun is one. He sits outside the window all day waiting for a chance to slip in and get at his pupil. He’s a first-rate teacher too. I wouldn’t shut him out, if I were you.

  ‘Every morning, the first thing when I woke up, I would say to myself: “I am going to get well, so Papa thinks. Perhaps it may be tomorrow. So, in case this should be the last day of my sickness, let me spend it beautifully, and make my sickroom so pleasant that everybody will like to remember it.”

  ‘Then, there is one more lesson, Katy – the lesson of Neatness. Schoolrooms must be kept in order, you know. A sick person ought to be as fresh and dainty as a rose.’

  ‘But it is such a fuss,’ pleaded Katy. ‘I don’t believe you’ve any idea what a bother it is to always be nice and in order. You never were careless like me, Cousin Helen; you were born neat.’

  ‘Oh, was I?’ said her cousin. ‘Well, Katy, we won’t dispute that point, but I’ll tell you a story, if you like, about a girl I once knew, who wasn’t born neat.’

  ‘Oh, do!’ cried Katy, enchanted. Cousin Helen had done her good already. She looked brighter and less listless than for days.

  ‘This girl was quite young,’ continued Cousin Helen; ‘she was strong and active, and liked to run and climb and ride, and do all sorts of jolly things. One day something happened – an accident – and they told her that all the rest of her life she had got to lie on her back and suffer pain, and never walk any more, or do any of the things she enjoyed most.’

  ‘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 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’v
e got to live in this room for a long time. Now there’s one thing I want you to do for my sake.”

  ‘“What is 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 sun shine 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 were going to be a dreadful trouble.

  ‘“Then, another thing,’ continued her father. “I want you to look pretty. Can’t night-gowns 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 – a great deal worse 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.