Jack the Hunchback Part 36

Aunt Nancy could not curb her curiosity until the animal was led in, but ran forward with Louis in her arms, Jack stopping the cow that she might read that which was written on the card.

The little woman was bewildered.

She could hardly realize the animal was a present until Jack repeated again and again what Mr. Souders had said, and then it was the hunchback's turn to be bewildered, for instead of expressing her grat.i.tude, she sat down on the gra.s.s, regardless of possible stains to her dress, and began to cry heartily.

"Why, I thought you'd be glad," Jack said in a tone of disappointment, while Louis pulled at the little woman's ringlets to show his sympathy for what seemed to be grief.

"So--so--so I am--Jack dear; but--but--it doesn't seem right that people should do so--so--so much for me."

"It wouldn't be enough if they'd sent a thousand cows."

"But for you I might never have had poor old crumple-horn replaced."

"Of course you would. That was wrote on the card only to make me feel better about what Mrs. Souders did; but she'd given you this all the same."

Aunt Nancy refused to look at it in that light, and Jack became confused at being overwhelmed with thanks.

The little woman insisted on tracing the gift directly to his visit to Treat's store, thus giving him nearly all the credit, until the conversation became really painful.

"Let's take her out to the pasture, for she must be hungry by this time," he said, as a means of putting an end to the words of grat.i.tude which he believed were undeserved.

This aroused Aunt Nancy to a sense of the situation as nothing else could have done, for the thought that anything around her might be suffering would always cause her to forget herself, and she followed Jack, who had lifted Louis to the cow's back to give him a ride.

It was a sort of triumphal procession which halted at the pasture bars in order that Aunt Nancy might inspect more closely her new pet.

"Seems wrong to say anything disparaging of poor old crumple-horn after she has served me faithfully for so many years, but I must confess this cow looks as if she might be a better milker."

"I'll bet she's the best in town," Jack replied enthusiastically, as he pulled clover for the gentle animal to eat.

"Not quite that, Jack dear, for Deacon Downs has a Jersey that leads everything."

"At any rate his cow can't be as kind as this one."

"That may be," Aunt Nancy replied meditatively as she kissed the fawn colored nose. "I do really think we couldn't have found a better subst.i.tute for poor old crumple-horn."

Then the animal was examined critically, without a single flaw having been found, and not until half an hour was spent in this manner could she be allowed to enter the pasture.

Aunt Nancy thought it her duty to see Mrs. Souders at the earliest opportunity in order to thank her for the gift, and decided to do so on the following morning when the breakfast dishes had been cleared away.

Jack went to clean the stall in the barn for the new cow's occupancy, and was working industriously when he fancied he heard a cry of distress coming from the direction of the duck pond.

His first thought was that Louis had strayed again, but on looking out, both he and the little woman were seen under the big oak, apparently as happy and contented as well could be.

Believing he had been deceived by his fancy, he resumed the work, but only to stop an instant later as the cries sounded more distinct.

This time there could be no mistake, and he ran toward Aunt Nancy as he asked,--

"Do you hear that noise? I'm goin' to see what it means."

As he went rapidly across the fields without waiting for a reply, the little woman followed him, but her pace was slow because of having the baby in her arms.

The cries continued almost incessantly, and by them Jack was guided to a clump of large trees standing near one end of the pond within a few yards of the spot where Louis had been set adrift on the raft.

It was not necessary to search long for the sufferer.

Lying on the ground, held firmly down by a huge limb of a tree which had fallen across his breast in such a manner that he could not use his arms, was Bill Dean.

His face was pale, whether from pain or fear Jack had no means of ascertaining, for the boy did not wait to be questioned, but cried piteously,--

"O Hunchie, help me outer this sc.r.a.pe an' I won't ever play tricks on you agin!"

This promise was not necessary to enlist Jack's sympathy.

It was a boy in agony and not an enemy he saw before him; the only question in his mind was how the rescue could be effected.

"Lay still, an' I'll do the best I can; but it may hurt a little more when I try to lift the limb."

Kneeling that he might get his shoulder under one end of the heavy branch, Jack tried to raise it, but in vain.

He was making the second effort, Bill moaning piteously meanwhile, when Aunt Nancy arrived, and she, like Jack, thought only of relieving suffering.

"Where are you hurt, William?" she asked anxiously.

"I don't know, but it seems as if the ache was all over my body."

"How did the accident happen?"

"I was choppin' this limb off to build a new raft, an' it fell on me."

"Can you lift it, Jack dear?"

"I'm afraid not; it's terribly heavy."

"Let me help you."

The two strained and tugged all to no purpose, when, as he paused to regain his breath and wipe the perspiration from his face, Jack said,--

"I could cut away part of it if I had an axe."

"Mine is around here somewhere," Bill said with a groan.

Jack soon found the tool, and, working very cautiously lest he should cause the sufferer yet more pain, chopped here and there to remove the larger twigs, while Aunt Nancy bathed Bill's pale face with her handkerchief wetted in the pond.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Where are you hurt, William?" asked Aunt Nancy anxiously.--Page 252.]

It required nearly half an hour of the most fatiguing labor to perform the task, and then Jack said as he threw down the axe,--

"When I lift on this end you must try to pull him out, Aunt Nancy."