Ma gasped. “Oh, Roy! Whatever has happened to you?”
Poor Roy was hardly able to get his breath. His face was swollen, and his eyes were practically closed. Between wheezes he managed to tell Ma about the weeds.
“I guess I got more than I thought yesterday. I think they’ve poisoned me.”
“Oh, dear,” Ma said. “You’re in no condition for a trip. I’ll fix you some honeycomb and lemon and see if we can take care of it.”
I was appalled. I had meant to teach Roy a lesson, not kill him. He would be furious when he found out what I had done. I decided not to tell him. I’d shake out his pillow and put a clean case on it. He didn’t have to know I was to blame for his sorry state.
“I can’t leave Roy alone like this,” Ma said as we ate breakfast. “You and Mabel and Reuben go ahead and enjoy the day.”
Needless to say, I didn’t. The look on Roy’s face as we drove off and the knowledge that Ma was missing the fun too canceled any joy I might have had on the trip.
“I suffered as much as Roy did,” I told Sarah Jane the next day. “I guess that will teach me to believe what the Bible says about vengeance belonging to the Lord.”
“Are you going to ask him to forgive you?” Sarah Jane wanted to know.
“Are you out of your mind? He’d clobber me!”
“You know what the Bible says about forgiveness,” Sarah Jane said with a shrug. “I wouldn’t want to live with that on my conscience.”
“It should be on your conscience,” I retorted. “It was your idea. I don’t know why I always end up being the guilty party.”
But in spite of my conscience, I didn’t tell Roy what I had done. I pushed it to the back of my mind, and as the weeks went by, I forgot about it. One morning in the fall, Pa called Roy to the yard.
“There’s a branch right over Mabel’s window that needs cutting off,” he said. “The first big wind could bring it down on the roof.”
Roy got the ladder and the saw and prepared to do the job. A few minutes later, I heard him call.
“Mabel! Come here and see this!” He held out a large bird’s nest. Inside lay my pin, my comb, and a shiny quarter.
“A magpie’s nest,” Roy said. “They’re the worst thieves in the world—grab anything that shines. You must have had your window open.”
“I did,” I said, and I began to cry.
“Girls!” Roy said in disgust. “I thought you’d be glad to see this stuff. I’ll put it back up there if you want me to.”
Between sobs I managed to tell Roy what I had done and asked him to forgive me.
“I ought to smack you good,” he told me. “But I guess you feel bad enough already.”
“Do we have to tell Pa and Ma?” I asked.
“I don’t,” Roy replied. “It’s up to you.”
“Did they punish you?” Sarah Jane asked later, when I told her what had happened.
“Not in the regular way,” I replied. “They felt so bad about it that it made me feel worse. I’m sure Pa’s way of loving people instead of getting even with them is the best.”
“I don’t know why you can’t remember that,” Sarah Jane said with a sigh. “It would certainly save you a lot of heartache.”
“You should be pounded,” I told her. “I wonder if anyone else ever had a best friend like you.”
Also available in the Grandma’s Attic series.
The late Arleta Richardson grew up on the shores of Lake Michigan. There, her storyteller grandmother recounted memories of her childhood on a nineteenth-century farm. In the Grandma’s Attic series, Arleta retells those stories vividly—stories that have now reached more than two million people around the world.
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Treasures from Grandma's Attic Page 9